


the folklore of an infinite life

by tothemoon



Series: ad astra [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Museums
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothemoon/pseuds/tothemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And so they part. </p><p>Right at the wisteria tree, back to where they started, and Tooru wonders when he'll see him again.</p><p>---</p><p>Or: Oikawa Tooru is a museum curator in this current lifetime. A name, <i>Hajime</i>, keeps showing up in his history books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. almost

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I said I would try to publish this all in one go, but it's honestly too hefty to finish all in one place. So I give you the first ten thousand words or so. Hope you enjoy!
> 
>  **also, just to warn you, because this is a fic about reincarnation, death will be involved to some capacity!** (It's not so bad though, I swear.)

 

  
  
  
  
  
  


_Iwa-chan,_

_Did you know that everyone and everything has electrons sitting on the surface of their skin? They’re really small, so you wouldn’t even notice them on a daily basis, but it means you’re never really touching anything in actuality, because the electrons are busy repelling each other. Every time you slip on your tennis shoes, or turn the page in a book, or swipe a hand across my cheek, you experience the smallest distance between your favorites._  

_How do you feel about this? Knowing how close you come, but not close enough?_

_How long can you live with these almosts?_

  
  
  


 

 

 

  
  
  


On the grounds of the Nara National Museum is an old guesthouse at the bottom of a hill, forgotten under high-hanging wisteria trees and the people of a current lifetime.

"Welcome to the universe," its sole curator, Oikawa, announces with all the pride the museum grounds can muster anyway, sliding the doors open to this season's round of volunteers, two rowdy underclassmen from the nearby university (in dire, _dire_ need of extra credit). He presses hard candies and satsumas into their pockets for their _much appreciated_ services here at the museum today, disregards the house’s terrible creaking, and watches their faces sink further in skepticism. When the breeze kicks up, blowing in strong for the mid-spring, he shuts the door behind him closed, peering ahead at one of the oldest houses in the country, and _home sweet home_ , by most accounts. 

One of the volunteers—Oikawa _thinks_ his name is Hinata, but _chibi-chan_ might do just as well, thanks to his height—glances at the gaudy stand-up sign in the corner. He reads the name of the exhibit, simply titled " _Almost,_ " nearly as grave as the melodramatic font face, and waits for Oikawa's explanations. 

To start, Oikawa just paces further into the house, socked feet on newly-polished hardwood. The two other boys follow when the one named Kageyama Tobio opens his mouth to repeat the word again. " _Almost,_ " he says. "What a simple title for an exhibit like this."

"Yeah," Hinata follows up, too. "What does a house full of _old stuff_ have to do with anything _almost_?"

" _Old stuff?_ " Oikawa starts, brushing the dust off one of the heirlooms hanging on the walls. "You know, it really hurts my feelings when volunteers come in and don't know _a thing_ about my work."

"Hinata isn't a historian," Kageyama corrects, taking interest in one of the rooms, its door already slid open. "So you'll have to excuse his ignorance."

"Oh, _shut up_ , Kageyama-kun!"

Oikawa rolls his eyes at their bickering, remembers why he _hates_ taking on undergrads for things like this (lest they _break something_ ), but forges on anyway. Kageyama's still got his sights on the room ahead, so he takes the liberty of showing them its splendor.

"Well, let's begin the tour," Oikawa announces. When he switches on the dim lights to the Heian room, Oikawa lets them go starry eyed. On the walls hang two sokutai robes only worn by aristocrats of the times, both fine in their own ways, along with the adornments that only seek to follow. Kageyama starts babbling on about everything in the room, from an early edition of _Genji Monogatari_ just out in the open, to the piece of an old vermillion column from a torii gate, to the frayed parchment from a lady's unused stationery set. Oikawa just waits until Kageyama gets a closer look at the exhibit's centerpiece, because he's bound to see it, just like everyone else, and lets himself swell with pride.

"Wait."

"Hm?" Oikawa smiles when the undergrad finds it. _Gotcha._

An original edition of poem _Iroha,_ the only glass-enclosed artifact in the whole exhibit, sits carefully under the hanging robes like two ghosts might be guarding its legacy.

Kageyama frowns. "It can't be. I've heard rumors, but is this—"

"It is."

A poem only captured in the most _general_ of general knowledge by now, knowing _Iroha_ was no great feat, but owning the original manuscript was an entirely different story. With something smug, Oikawa prepares his answers to questions he knows he’ll probably get. _Oh, yes, that really is the original. It's been in my family for centuries now. Oh, yes, I’ve gotten it tested by hundreds of experts and they've passed all the inspections. It really is the real thing!_

_Oh—and yes, you should probably count all your blessings for getting to be here. There's no place in the world like it._

Kageyama spins around, tongue-tied, before staring up at the two sets of robes. Hinata looks on with him. “You should know that I read about your exhibit before coming here,” he explains, and Oikawa lets a smirk break across his face. “Your research has been focused on one-on-one correspondence—”  
  
“ _Letter writing,_ in other words,” Oikawa explains to Hinata, more in layman’s terms.

“ _Letter writing,_ ” Kageyama repeats back. “And it’s always between just two people, stretching from _Heian_ to _Sengoku_ to _post-war. Every single time,_ they’re companions, or _best friends,_ if you’d like to use those terms.”

“Interpersonal relationships can say a lot,” Oikawa chimes in, as casual as possible, “and I certainly think it’s worth studying in depth."

"I mean, that's not my point."

"Do you even _have_ one?" 

"I do," the underclassmen insists. 

"Then get to it."

Kageyama clicks his tongue, trying to form the words. “You’re telling me that one of those letters you've collected contains an _original_ copy of _Iroha_?” asks Kageyama, fully disbelieving. "And that you might know the person who _wrote_ it?"

At the inquiry, Oikawa steps forward, places outstretched fingertips on the glass over the encasing, and nods. “Not only do I know, but I believe it was _this writer's last,_ left by a court poet for someone he held dear,” he brings himself into a whisper.

“And who might that be?” Kageyama asks. 

“Who do you think?”

“I’d...rather not speculate.”

Oikawa doesn't give the answer away. He just lets the silence hang deep for a moment, and his two volunteers scan the room for clues.

Hinata beams up suddenly. “The emperor?” he suggests rather wildly, pointing up at the finer set of robes on the wall, spotting the modest crown of a _kanmuri_ on the ground of the display under it. Oikawa only nods in affirmation, and watches how both of them realize the gravity of the room. Kageyama is the first one to regain composure, _scholar_ facing _scholar-to-be_ , and Oikawa only rolls his eyes when he knows what _Tobio-chan_ will end up saying. 

“Oikawa-san, I _really_ mean no disrespect, but you need to get these heirlooms out of this old house, then,” Kageyama insists, so antsy in his place he looks like he might run off with a few of the artifacts himself. “I mean, the museum probably has the vaults to house all of this—" 

"Oh, I'm aware of the _National's_ storage options."

"Then shouldn't you get them out before the house comes down?"

Oikawa remains calm, more bemused than anything. “Because it won’t.”

“Oh, but it _really_ will, Oikawa-san,” insists Kageyama. “I understand that this house goes with the exhibit, but think of the history you’re putting in danger.”

“Well, not that I asked for your opinion, _Tobio-chan,”_ Oikawa answers him, suddenly feeling stifled by the room’s four walls, “but keeping this house open isn’t just for aesthetics.” He goes over to the sliding doors on the left side of the room, lets some air in by the crack of the wooden panel, and waits for the wisteria petals to find their way in. He takes a deep breath at the strong breeze, sights cast briefly on the emperor’s seafoam robes, before going to prove Kageyama wrong. “This is the strongest house you’ll find in the nation,” he tells them both. “It’s seen things you wouldn’t even imagine. Flooding and fire. Monsoons and wars." To further prove his point, Oikawa pounds the hardwood below with the heel of his foot, making a solid _thunk_ in the process. "And since you've taken the time to look me up, I'm sure you know my stance on _going anywhere else_."

“Yes, and I’m sorry, but I can’t sit back and listen to _urban legends_ ,” Kageyama insists, wind howling even fiercer. “Come on, Hinata, maybe it’s not too late to change our posts at the office—”

“But Kageyama-kun—”

“Let’s go!” 

“But _look_!” Hinata yanks Kageyama’s hand and points up once more at the robes, how they remain still despite the flow of an incoming gust, still too strong for the typical season. The entire room remains frozen in time, loose papers still in place, exhibit kept in tact, and Oikawa watches how both boys, dumbstruck, remain to gather petals at their feet. 

"Impossible," Kageyama breathes out.

" _Cool_ ," Hinata squeaks out in awe.

 _“Typical,”_ Oikawa mutters. He just forces a smile once more, slides the door open to sit on the terrace outside, and welcomes the two of them to join. When they do, as skittish as they all are, he thinks of where to start. It is always difficult to find the right beginning. 

“It sounds like the two of you need to hear my story,” Oikawa continues without missing a beat, cupping a wisteria billow so close to his face he's tempted to kiss it. He picks a few flowers off instead, subtle and felt only by the skin of his hands, and he ponders just the right place to tell the tale. Loose petals drift from his grip when he does, lost forever to the rush of a floral storm.

"There once was a wisteria tree in Nara, where two boys were fated to meet. One was an emperor to be, and the other, a poet."

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


Tooru had decided.

Tooru had decided, that amongst the shedding ginkgo leaves and the cranes bathing in the Kumano River, the wind and the rain and sun up above Nara, that he would write his first poem about a wisteria tree. It had been his first year of traveling outside of Heian-kyō, and it was probably the only thing he liked about the old capital—with all of its eerie tranquility and abundance of _breathing room—_ and the flurry of falling petals reminded him of just the opposite: there was a chaos in such storms, the reassurance of _movement_ , and this had been nothing short of inspiration. 

(And oh gods, did he need _inspiration.)_

Because Tooru had decided, despite the droves of scholars and _mentors_ saying _six was too early to start with anything good_ —that like the sun coming up for the morning, or the single bird bathing in the bank before the others could get the chance—that there was no such thing as _too early_ at all. He could not wait, if he was to be brilliant. To beat the plague of idleness ( _and damn the court’s persistent idleness)_ , he had to keep his fingers busy. 

 _"Six is too young to be ambitious,"_ the aristocrats had told him, annoyingly so. Tooru thought otherwise, because even the smallest hand could hold a brush, and it would be a waste not to put them into use. Dipping a new one clean into the ink, steadies his grip for the perfect penmanship, and casts his sights up at the wisteria billows for final reassurance. The morning sun glitters in the spaces between leaves and petals, and the branches spread out to reach the sky. _Oh, how I'd like to reach it, too,_ he thinks, _and if I die, let me die a star._

"I refuse! I am not going back!"Another boy’s voice rings loud, but cracked like it might cry.

Tooru spills his ink, and peace is broken before he can make his ascent. In a huff, he darts his attentions to the house right across the tree, peers into the sliver of an open door of the servant's quarters, and watches another boy his age come through in a rush. He's wearing the finest robes he's ever seen his life, hems muddied and ruined by recklessness. The boy, dark and frowning and mean by his glares, looks straight to Tooru, hops off the terrace side, and presses a finger to shushing lips. "Be quiet," he cuts Tooru in a whisper, disappearing behind the thick trunk of the wisteria tree. 

It doesn't take long for a few guards to burst through the same door, and Oikawa is left to clutch at his wrinkled parchments. He gasps when a few upper ranking court members saunter to the front, and immediately switches to a deep bow, waiting for further address. 

"Boy," a voice rings out. "What is your name?"

"Tooru, sir," he tells them. 

"Which house do you come from, Tooru?"

With a shake of the head, Tooru has told this story many times. "I have no house. Just a court noble who was gracious enough to take me in patronage and firm belief." 

Another aristocrat scoffs. "You speak eloquently for a child." 

"The highest compliment I have ever received, sir," Tooru states, getting deeper in his bow.

"You can hear more of that praise, if you'd like. No need for just one patron. You could have ten, if you help us out."

Tooru raises his head, eyes wide. "Pardon?"

"You'd just have to tell us one thing."

"And that is?" 

" _Where did he go_?"

“Well…” At once, Tooru weighs all his options, the good, the bad, the falling petals in between, and sucks in a deep breath. He shakes his head, mustering the shyest front he can muster, and tells them, "I saw no one pass through here." He then points to his empty ink bottle and finds sudden bravado. "You see, I was working on my first ever poem, a _masterpiece,_ when I spilled my ink. My apologies, if you heard me holler about it—"

"We could have you tried and executed for _treason_ , if you're lying."

Tooru blinks. "And what is treason again?" he asks, fully aware of the implications. 

“Little _brat—”_

"Let's stop wasting time, already!" another court member cries out. "You know how fast that boy runs. He could be on the other side of the city, by now!"

With no further duress or interrogation, the guards and nobles take their leave through the servants' door once more, leaving Tooru alone. He exhales, brushing the dirt off his knees before settling back down on the petal bed. 

"I owe you a new bottle of ink," the boy tells him from behind the tree after a while. 

Tooru shrugs, but doesn't turn around. " _Hm,_ " he pouts. "It was nothing. There's adventure in running away, and a little bit of ink is a decent price to pay to fund it. " 

" _Still_ ," says the boy.

"It's fine! Really!" Tooru giggles. "So...why were you running away? You could at least tell me that, right?”

"That's not important."

" _Okay_..." Tooru stifles a frown. "Then what's your name?"

The boy doesn't answer at first. Tooru peeks back up at the terrace, finds no trace of stirring, not even a single servant, and extends a cautious hand behind the tree. 

"You can come out now, if you want," Tooru offers. "I don't think anyone will find you here now."

And so the boy does. He crawls towards Tooru, petals still stuck in bristly dark hair, and the poet-to-be watches him soften out of scowling, and the counted way he calms his breathing. But Tooru really can’t blame him for the strain: he remembers all the times he couldn't sit still either, where hours turned into whole afternoons hiding from mentors and tutors and the ladies-in-waiting.

“Hi,” Tooru says to him, all soft.

In the wildest of speculation, Tooru conjures up stories about why the boy might've run away. (A servant boy, who has stolen the crown prince's robes, runs for his life in the finest silks! A cook's son, sneaking poison into the soup, seeks revenge upon a particularly _idle_ noble!) But upon tracing the tiny freckles on the bridge of the boy's nose, pondering about his tanned country skin and the dirt under short fingernails, the firm way he holds the earth under him, Tooru decides he can't quite place his story. For once, and at the strangest ease, he lets this go.

"My name is Hajime," Tooru hears him say, and he beams at the sound of it. _Hajime._ He thinks it sounds familiar, but he's not entirely sure why. _Hajime._ The other boy only slinks back, but Tooru closes the distance anyway, so close he takes the liberty of picking a petal off Hajime's cheek.

"It's nice to meet you, Hajime. I'm—"

" _Tooru_ ," Hajime repeats back. "I know. I could hear you and the guards, and how they offered you ten patrons to give me up.” From there, he gets up from the base of the tree, looks out at the low valley ahead, and starts walking. His geta sandals stomp the earth on the way to nowhere, grace hardly considered. Tooru decides he might like the impact of it, nonetheless.

“Oh, I doubt they were being serious _anyway_ ,” Tooru tries to refute, letting the thought sting nonetheless.

Hajime brushes the petals off his shoulder. “You don't know what a bunch of bored nobles might do.”

“What? Like you do?” Tooru asks him back, finding himself farther and farther from the wisteria tree.

On their stroll, tall grasses hide them from view, and the whistle of mountain winds stifle their voices. Leading the way, Hajime only glances over his shoulder, hides a cheek against the cloth of his fine robe, and keeps going. Sandals continue to dig into earth, making their marks. Tooru follows, pretending not to be entranced. 

“You said you write poetry,” Hajime continues, and Tooru nods back before deciding that is a lie.

“No,” Tooru answers him, quieter than he'd like, and the wind dies down at that moment to suit him. “Not yet.” At this, they both stop walking. “I’d _like_ to write poetry, and I _was_ going to write my first today, but it's hard, I think. There's something special about _the first_. I believe it must be something to remember.”

Above them, the wind kicks up again, and Tooru watches Hajime dig his geta heel into the dirt. 

“I see,” Hajime tells him.

Tooru smiles, shy and nodding. He's never had anyone listen to him about this before, and it is enough to make goosebumps on his skin. “Do you like poetry, too?” he asks excitedly, holding his breath.

“Not particularly,” Hajime confesses. 

“Oh.” 

“But that doesn't matter. We should make that _first_ special for you, and we can't have that without a little exploring. It's all _blooming sakura_ and _cicada songs,_ isn’t it? I think I owe you _that_ alone, even if I think poetry is boring.”

“You don't owe me anything, especially if you don’t like my craft,” Tooru tells Hajime all miffed in return. After all, he had been alone up until this time, and it wouldn't hurt to stay that way (even if it wasn’t particularly _nice_ , either).

“Fine. Then let's say _I want to_.”

“But you don’t,” Tooru argues back.

“I _do._ ”

And just like that, as impolite as _impolite_ can get, and surely in the mark of someone without a court’s high stature, Hajime has the audacity to take Tooru’s hand without offering. Tooru gasps in something silent, but he stays anyway. He’s never really liked anyone touching him, but he might be able to take exception with this; there is something in Hajime’s grip that is warm yet never smothering.

They walk on and on from there, below the sun and hollering mountain winds, waving at bathing cranes and collecting the ginkgo leaves. When they're not hiding from the guards, Hajime talks about skipping rocks in the Kumano and riding horses, and Tooru gossips about every noble and meritless poet he finds annoying in the lower ranks of court. They even venture in the villages where orderly rows turn into something less so, and the walls come down in lieu of something more honest. Amongst the farmers scrambling to get their spring plantings in, the thatchers working on battering down old and flimsy homes, their dirt-dusted hands and blackened feet, Tooru learns of a new world, and finds that Hajime seems to belong in it more than anyone else. 

“So, have you figured out what to write about yet?” Hajime asks him on their way out, both of them no longer on the run from guards or nobles or the unwanted influence of _writer’s block._ Tooru doesn’t know how to tell him though, that _yes I know exactly who to write about,_ and resorts to something he knows best.

“No,” comes a white lie. “Not yet.”

By the end of the day, past the skipping stones, the prodding feet, the working hands, and the gentle, private smile of a boy in ruined robes, Tooru learns two important truths: that Hajime makes Nara a place Tooru might miss, and that he will be sad to leave by the early morning.

And so they part. Right at the wisteria tree, back where they started, and Tooru wonders when he'll see him again.

That night, he dreams of a poem to write, all about Hajime and their time together, and tentatively titles it _Iroha._ It is one that he’d change over and over in the years to come, for better and for worse and every instance in between.

  
  
  
  
  


**x**

  
  
  
  
  


By the time autumn arrives and Tooru’s returned from the farthest edges of the island’s countryside, he is seven, homesick for Heian-kyō, and ready to reunite with his city.

“ _Bliss_!” Tooru sighs out in a dream, ever dramatic. When he throws himself at the mercy of his home atop the hillside— _oh, home sweet home—_ he flails about with robe sleeves all fluttering. A handmaiden in his patron’s household scolds him for falling so _uncouth_ over the tatami mats, and Tooru just laughs right back at her. 

“The countryside was so _boring,_ even the _crickets_ were chanting funeral prayers!”

“Yes, that may be true, but that is certainly no excuse for such a hideous display. Gather yourself and get rid of those habits!” the handmaiden insists, too disgusted to yank Tooru up herself. Tooru sits up, still beaming, and looks out the open door. A bunch of aristocrats in their formal kanmuri hats come rushing past the house, too heavily dressed to do anything but waddle by, and Tooru can only stifle back more laughter. In something lingering, he immediately softens at the thought of his friend Hajime, so free from haughty prestige. 

“But those habits are the only way to remember _him_ by,” Tooru tells her. “I made a friend in Nara, you see, the most _impolite_ boy you'll ever meet, but he was _kind_ and—”

“It's not like you'll ever see him again,” the handmaiden says, already bored and past the issue of manners. Cracking the door further open, she watches more of the procession walk by, bowing lightly to the men of the court. “It's best to forget him, and focus on your poetry,” she concludes, and Tooru wilts by a sigh.

To divert himself, he looks to the crowd as well. He pretends her words don't sting. “What's going on outside?” asks Tooru, consciously flippant.

“Oh, that's right—you just got back to the city today. Your master was briefed on it this morning, so he's already with the rest of them, but you don't know, do you?”

Tooru shakes his head. “What's happening?”

“Emperor Shirakawa is giving up his rule,” the handmaiden whispers. “It's a very odd move, unprecedented if I do say so myself. But I doubt he will be far from the throne. His heir is much too young to do anything.” 

Tooru hasn’t a faintest clue either, but usually prefers to keep out of politics anyway. Pretending to care about seeing the new emperor in action, he just follows the court lady out onto the deck of their house, dragging some parchment and a few brushes along in case the wait would be a long one. Certainly not as extravagant as aoi matsuri in spring, or as dour as an official’s winter funeral, Tooru even forgets about writing after a while, letting himself drift off to the sound of the shamisen and a pulse-beat drum. The sweet smell of chrysanthemum wafts in from the parade to put him in the utmost peace, only to mix with the crackled air of the season.

“Tooru, he’s here! The emperor is here!” the handmaiden exclaims, and the neighbors also erupt in a joyous cheer. 

“How nice,” Tooru lilts with little enthusiasm, still heavy-lidded and ready to sleep. He stretches out a yawn and catches the sight of a vermillion palanquin up the road. A dozen soldiers, all stone-faced, come marching with the new emperor in their care, and the drums continue to bang. _Boring, boring, boring,_ Tooru hears.

Under the noise, Tooru perks up when he hears a mother argue with her son: 

“ _It’s time for you to accept this!”_  

“ _I will stop and run, if you make me go through with this, I swear to you_ —” 

 _Run._ Tooru instantly recognizes the voice. “ _Hajime!”_ he cries out from his place on the ledge, leaning out too far with hands barely gripped on the house column. He falls over—much to the horror of the handmaiden—and ends up tumbling down the hillside, dead brambles serving as little reprieve for the catch.

“ _Heavens,_ ” Tooru cries out (when he might actually be _crying_ about this). With a groan, he knows he’s probably ruined his robes and cut his lip open, tasting blood on his tongue. One geta sandal has even escaped him, and his knees sting in something scraped on the gravel. Sucking in tears, he thinks to stay down for a moment to retain the littlest grace he has left. In the next, someone has taken his hand to help him get back up again. The grip is warm, but never smothering, and Tooru has to tell himself not to look up. _Don't you dare._

“Tooru?”

At the call of the name, Tooru raises his head despite the messiness. He wipes the dirt off his face, sees Hajime, _his Hajime,_ fully dressed in plum blossom sokutai robes, kanmuri firmly placed on his head.

At once, Tooru realizes who he is.

“You’re the emperor,” Tooru breathes out. “The new—” when he reaches out to say anything further, two guards come  running out from the thickest part of the crowd, pull Hajime back in their grasp, and jab Tooru with the blunt end of a spear. From there, Hajime starts screaming at the top of his lungs, head yanked back and calling after his friend. The guards go unfettered when Hajime tries to kick them.

 _“Tooru!”_ he yells, over and over. _“Tooru!_ ” And this time, because movement cannot sustain itself forever, Tooru really does drift off, chest in hearty ache, and feels his scrapes with a gentle sort of burn.

  
  
  
  


 

**x**

  
  
  


 

 

When Tooru wakes up the next day, he is in a futon that is not his own. He doesn’t remember ever being this comfortable, under sheets so smooth he might as well have been wrapped in a warm bath; he wonders if he is dreaming at first— _because seeing Hajime surely must have been a dream—_ and sits up, heavy in the head and throbbing all over. 

His house’s handmaiden, dabbing tears with her sleeve, and gasps when he sees him awake. “Oh, Tooru! I thought you’d never wake up!” she exalts. Tooru smiles wearily, still confused at just where he is, and declines her offer of soup or tea. 

“What have you done to yourself?” she starts scolding him after, simply beside herself that _a noble in the making_ would be _indelicate_ enough to make such a scene, and that potential has surely been wasted. After calming down, another ugly cry emerges once more when she tells Tooru the news: in the light of following events, the lord of their house has disowned him, effective immediately to save face, and there was simply nothing she could do to stop it.

“Then...where am I?” Tooru asks, too shocked to ask the right questions. “If I am to leave the house, why did he bring me somewhere so nice?” 

The handmaiden goles pale in the face. “The master did no such thing.”

“Then who did?”

The doors slide open at that moment, and Hajime comes through with two guards trailing behind him. He quickly shuts them out before they can even enter, and the handmaiden quickly goes into a bow of utmost respect. Hajime waves her off, looking supremely uncomfortable, and goes over to Tooru immediately.

“Hajime—”

“ _Tooru!_ Have some manners! Address him as _Emperor Horikawa_ —”

“I swear if I have to hear that name one more time today, I really will run away,” Hajime threatens, more blunt than anything else. Tooru can’t help but hold back a laugh.

Hajime goes over to him, takes one of his bandaged hands, and inspects to make sure it is clean. At this, Tooru winces, more so because it tickles, and ends up laughing despite his series of mishaps. The boy emperor, _Hajime,_ smiles in turn.

“Can I please have the room?” he turns to ask the handmaiden quietly. She does shortly after that, chirping to the other ladies-in-waiting outside on the terrace. 

Hajime goes mum when he thinks of what to say to Tooru. “You can stay here as long as you need—”

“You’re the emperor.”

“I mean, my mother says it’s okay, and my father’s already taken his office in another estate so I doubt he’ll any problem with it—”

“ _You’re the emperor,_ ” Tooru repeats back, still in awe. Horrified. Enlightened. He hasn't quite decided yet.

Hajime sighs, pausing to find the things he’d like to say. “I…” he starts, before tailing off. He plays with his robes uncomfortably, shaking his head a few times. “Does that change anything?” he asks without shame, and Tooru blushes at how sincere the question is. He gulps in turn, trying to find his own words, and reaches forward, to find his first and only friend in the Heian-kyō court.

 _Friend._ At that moment, Tooru decides that’s what he is, like it or not, peasant or emperor, and says nothing more about it. He just smiles for him, still a little sleepy, and waits for Hajime to grip his hand back harder. 

“Thank you,” he whispers to Tooru in turn, and he does. When their hands lace and stay together, two boys on the precipice of the unknown and the pressures of the imperial court, Tooru just lets the comfort set in, homeward bound and safe, and does not recoil at his touch.

  
  
  


 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

 

By the time Oikawa has finished telling just part of his story, Hinata and Kageyama have eaten all their candy and satsumas, waiting for more to unfold. 

“So the poet and the emperor were together from then on, right? Like always?” Hinata asks, like this might be some kind of fairytale. He's all wide eyed, chin perched on his hands, while Kageyama seems intent on finding any sort of falsity within his stories. He's even got a notepad out by now, jotting down notes along the way, and Oikawa can only find his scribbling _supremely annoying_. 

Oikawa shakes his head and answers Hinata’s questions before Kageyama can even open his mouth for his own. “Well, you can't always be together,” he explains. “From the letters I've read since their first meeting, I gather that the two of them spent considerable time apart, too, learning their respective trades. The emperor excelled in horsemanship and rice wine tastings, while the poet continued to seek literary greatness, sometimes in self-imposed solitudes. He travelled often.” 

Kageyama eyes him with a frown. “Yeah? And how can you prove that?” he sneaks through, and Oikawa can only grit his teeth and smile through it. 

“ _Letters_ ,” Oikawa reminds the both of them again. “After the poet came to live at the imperial household, he started writing them all the time, most of them to Emperor Horikawa.” He thinks of the other name, testing it out on his tongue. “ _Hajime_.” He shivers when it sounds much too fond on his tongue, and he promptly clears his throat to keep on course. “It's safe to assume they were very close, even if they weren't in the capital together all the time. They were still very close even after the poet moved out to form his own household, too,” he explains further, perhaps too pleased at an accomplishment not his own.

(But he figures he _should_ be proud either way, since it’s not everyday—2015 or 1087—that a _fifteen year old_ should gain his own household, servants and _decorative koi pond_ and all.) 

“Does that mean Emperor Horikawa wrote to the poet, too?” Hinata asks.

Oikawa laughs. “Oh, _no_ , he disliked all sorts of things like that, and wrote back very few,” he states with extra buoyancy. “He even once said to the poet that he _hated_ poetry.” When he hears the last part come out much too familiar, he thinks of the wisteria tree just across from the house, sees wild fields past it like the museum isn't in the way, and shakes his head. 

“Oikawa-san?” 

But it nags. His imagination persists like it has for the past year, for as long as he can remember, beyond the things he knows from recorded letters. Oikawa thinks of two boys, growing up together by Nara summers, and feels the warmth of their history in his hands. He scrunches them closed, fingertips to life lines, and tethers himself before getting carried away once more. Back on earth, Kageyama calls out for him again, _”Oikawa-san,”_ and forces him to concentrate. 

“Ah, sorry. Long day!” He smiles once more, clearly false again, but his two volunteers buy into it all the same. He’s gotten good at that. “You know, when you study these people for so long, you start to feel their lives meld with yours. It's the strangest sensation,” Oikawa remarks in the most inconsequential weight, peering out past the wisteria tree again. He feels his head pound.

Kageyama puts his notepad down. “Should we pick this up again tomorrow, then?” Hinata nods along, out of courtesy. 

 _Yes. A thousand times yes._ He tries not to sigh. Oikawa merely nods, trying hard not to show too much relief. “I think that would be best. Emperor Horikawa and his poet can wait.”

“Sure!” Hinata bolts up, collecting his garbage along the way. “Same time tomorrow?”

“Same time tomorrow.”

Kageyama is slower to get up, eyes still glued to the exhibit inside. “Just a few more questions, Oikawa-san.”

_Of course._

“Oh, don't be such a bother, Kageyama-kun!” Hinata says, kneading his side with a wriggling foot. The historian-to-be only remains, unfettered and sitting like a soldier.

“Go on,” Oikawa tests him. 

“How come we don't know the poet’s name? History has given us the likes of Murasaki Shikibu _, Shōnagon.”_  

 _“_ Legends say a controlling father scratched his name out from history books as punishment.” 

“For _what_?”

“You'll have to find out more tomorrow.”

Kageyama gruffs out a sigh. _“_ Just one more question, then, _”_ he does his best to concede.

 _“_ Go on _._ ” 

 _“_ Why have I never heard of this poet until now? How can you claim to know so much about him?”

At the question, one that Oikawa has tackled a million times before, he lets the house do the talking for him. Wind sweeps in once more, no match for the creaking foundation, and does battle in lieu of everyone else’s silence. Done for the day, Oikawa simply gets up from his place on the floor, goes back inside to observe the Heian era in its glory, and answers Kageyama firmly.

“It's all a matter of belief, I guess,” Oikawa says, and Kageyama can hardly accept the answer. With Hinata in tow (and Hinata squawking all the way, _“aw, don't be like that, Kageyama-kun!”_ ) they leave for the day (and maybe forever). (Hopefully forever.) At this, Oikawa just takes a deep breath, brushes his hands against a certain emperor’s plum robe, and takes his leave for the rest of the afternoon.

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

 

_My Esteemed Emperor Horikawa,_

_How does one count a year? Should I measure it by the lunar celebrations, or the change of seasons? Because it is hard to fathom that we’ve spent a whole year apart, and I just cannot wait to show you my new pieces! I keep hope for the day that you will sit still for one of my poems, instead of fretting over your hunts or horses or village visits._  

_But in all seriousness, you must've missed me terribly, yes? Please don't for too much longer, for I will be in Nara soon._

  
  
  
  


 

**x**

  
  
  
  
  


By the time summer returns to Nara for his eighteenth year, Tooru is a fully-fledged member of the court, spending his days wandering for his newest muse to write poetry to. Staring out the window of his ox-cart, he'd like to say he has many, but it is always the passing sort that never really means anything: chirpy crickets and girls with long hair make for fine additions in some patron’s archive or memento box, but nothing more, and such hollowness only makes Tooru antsier than ever before. He just shuffles his toes in the thongs of his sandals, and sighs in the purest lamentation.

Two other court members, Kunimi and Sugawara, look up from their readings across the carriage. Kunimi just blows smoke out from his pipe, not looking to get involved. (He _never_ gets involved, always so deeply involved in his folklores and other spiritual matters.) Sugawara, on the other hand, leans forward and offers a snicker.

“Now, now, you'll get to see him again soon,” Sugawara offers, and Tooru just scowls right back at him. Kunimi hums out a single note, barely heard, and goes back to reading.

“Not everything is about him, you know,” Tooru says, leaning his head back on the carriage wall, eyes darting between the two nobles. He settles his sights back out the window again, hoping to find peace, but even Nara’s clearest sky cannot help him today.

“Oh, of course not,” Sugawara chimes back, holding up his materials. Upon closer inspection, Tooru recognizes his own handwriting, and the title for address: _The Merit of Persistence in the Court._ He wrote that one last winter as a cheeky jab to the aristocracy's ever-present _idleness_ , and was then deemed the most irrepressible busybody amongst gossipers (despite ascending to second rank out of eight that year, _gods bless the ritsuryō codes_ ). At this, Tooru can't help but crack a smile, still proud at his doings, and wonders how he could’ve fallen into such hypocrisies _—_ he recounts the last week spent mostly sipping oolong tea and watching shamisen performances, and how court life was all starting to become too routine. 

“ _Precisely_ , then,” Tooru says with a smirk, masking a forlorn sigh with little effort.

“But then again, there is no weakness in saying you'd like to see him,” Sugawara offers. Tooru just goes agape at the notion, about to retort when a _horse’s neighing_ beats him at the chance.

Out the window, the nobles peek and watch three riders come zoom past their cart, a black and tall stallion leading the pack. 

“ _Stop_!” Tooru calls to the driver. _It’s his horse._ In an instant, and because a year really has been too long, Tooru waves to their driver to halt, startling both Sugawara and Kunimi in turn. Their ox halts a nasty neigh, and pulls their cart up in a sudden yank, sending their loose scriptures flying.

“Where are you going?” Sugawara asks, when Tooru’s too busy smoothing his hair back and fixing his robes. “We have an appointment to keep with Nekomata-dono, remember? We don't have time to stop!”

Tooru bows lightly. “My sincerest apologies,” he breezes out to the other nobles, hoping out from the carriage. “Like you said, _maybe I did want to see him.”_ From there, he watches the way Sugawara scoffs, beaten at his own game, and how a smirk forms across even Kunimi’s face. For a finishing touch, and only to leave himself on Nara’s outer roads, Tooru tells the driver to continue on without him, knowing that his destination will come by other means (and that appointments could always be rescheduled).

And so the cart leaves. Tooru trudges into unsown fields, a stampede of hooves roaring along wind ahead of him, and watches the dust fly up in their wake. He spots Hajime’s other friends, the young Kindaichi and the sturdy Sawamura, and glazes past them without much thought. Hajime lengthens their distance, leans parallel to the saddle of his beloved horse, and takes no chances at winning his sprint. He speeds up, faster than ever, and a certain poet cannot help but hold his breath for victory.

“Hajime!” Tooru calls out across the field with a wave, no longer able to keep it in. Hajime does not hear him right away. “Hajime!” 

When he does in fact win his race, the emperor throws himself back upright, tightens his grip on the reins, and slows into a fast little trot for the most modest victory lap Tooru’s ever seen. He even waits to greet his company, smiling in something smug (or _trying_ to be). Higher spirits ensue when the three riders erupt into laughter, hopping off their horses to recount their race.

_“You cheated! No one can beat your horse in a race!”_

_“And how is that my problem?”_

Tooru keeps on. By the eve of his eighteenth year, he should know better than to stare. But it's a habit Tooru’s never learned to break, and he knows that such things are harder with the likes of the boy in front of him; so past the bending summer haze, he watches all that he can, and sees Hajime—not as as emperor, or god’s given gift to this country, but _Hajime._

His hands, gentler than in any instance of penmanship or tea ceremony, graze across his favorite horse’s hide. His laugh, loud enough to be heard across the field, is hearty and clear but in no ways disruptive. A chin turns slightly to the gust, and he sighs with it. Cerulean suits him well under his armor plates, just like he's got the sky guarding his back, now full and grown. ( _And, oh, how he's grown._ ) It is when Tooru traces the outline of him like a mapmaker doing his finest work, that he realizes that Hajime is no longer what they'd call _a boy emperor._ At least, not with that extra bump of muscle on his bare forearm, or the melted baby fat, or the added height—at once, he is too embarrassed to even stare head on, and keeps his eyes on thistle stems below.

“Tooru!” He hears two horses race away. Daring to peek up, he sees the head of a black stallion come trotting through the weeds. Hajime leads by his lucky red reins, walking over without mounting his stallion. 

“Is that you, my _heavenly sovereign_?” Tooru feints back. 

“You really _have_ to stop calling me that.”

At once, Tooru tidies himself up further, matting clammy hands down at his sides. He offers a flirty smile, the same one he offers for the ladies of the court and potential patrons, but it never feels quite right with Hajime. He forges on anyway, even opting for a mocking sort of bow. 

In turn, Hajime only offers back a small _tch_ of the mouth, crossing his arms and examining Tooru up and down.

“You've gotten taller again,” Hajime remarks, gaze suddenly averted, and Tooru knows that is code for, _taller than me_. He pretends he isn't proud about this and walks on with Hajime, sharp weeds prickling his ankles.

“You can pray to _Amaterasu_ and hope for the best,” Tooru jokes, and Hajime only speeds his pace with his horse in tow. 

“No.”

“Tsukuyomi?”

“Stop.”

“ _Susanoo?_ ”

“I can just ride off and leave you in the fields, so good luck on making your appointments in time.” Still laughing, Tooru follows him anyway, and Hajime doesn’t get on his horse. A gentle quiet surrounds them in the fields, typical for two people who’ve known each other for so long, and lets them make the rest of the journey in comfort. On the way, Tooru tells offhanded stories about his new home on the northern edge of Heian-kyō, prattling on about the huge koi pond and the terrible cook, and keeps on despite Hajime’s silence.

“Tooru,” he finally offers, when they’re at the edge of imperial property, their wisteria tree in the barest line of sight.

“Yes?” the poet answers, all small in a whisper.

Hajime looks up at the sky, like he’s about to make a proclamation to the heavens. “I want to lead this country,” he says, as the wind dies down on his command.

Tooru hums out. “ _Hm?_ But you already do. You’re _the emperor._ ”

“But everyone in the court knows that doesn’t mean _anything,_ ” counters Hajime, and Tooru cannot refute this. “When was the last time I was called for anything substantial? It’s all purifications _and temple openings_! Power passes through cloistered rule. Law _passes_ with Emperor Shirakawa and the office where he sits.”

“You never cared before,” Tooru says. 

“It’s growing _up_ ,” Hajime argues back, trying not to raise his voice. Tooru wonders if he can feel the sting of it too, these periods of time of coming and going, of being here with him, and then not. _Of growing up._ Of leading households and bright-eyed apprentices, of leading whole courts and nations _._ A certain sort of quiet emerges once again, certainly the less comfortable kind, and Tooru can only do what he does best.

“It’s funny,” he says, trying to smile. “The first time I met you, you were running away from it.”

“I think it's time I take my seat back, Tooru. I _have_ to,” Hajime insists, and facades are thrown away. “It was fine, riding horses all day and drinking _sake_ when I was younger. “But...not anymore. Not when people forget this country is more than just the court that presides over it.” He stops walking, tightening the reins in his grip. “There's a whole world out there, don't you know? Wouldn't you like to see it, too?” 

Tooru cannot argue with this. “Of course,” he can only answer in all honesty, cracked in a way that never would be with Sugawara or Kunimi or anyone else on the court. “Of course,” he can only repeat like it’s the only words he knows, despite the different paths and _converging roads_ and _almost there’s_ that Tooru cannot even begin to imagine. “ _Of course_ ,” he can only admit, because he knows he must continue to see the world for himself, too, whether Hajime is there or not. 

“I can only hope for the best then,” Hajime says, mounting his horse. Tooru watches how high he goes, how tall he sits, and notes, once more, how much a difference one year really makes. From there he thinks of the many more to come, the ones together, and the ones apart, and takes his hand to ride with him, too.

All the way back to the wisteria tree, Tooru leans against Hajime’s back, closes his eyes like he might drift off altogether, and lets himself have this moment of peace. His chest tightens when he wraps his arms around Hajime, enough to speak up, enough to write volumes, but he does not end up saying a word. 

 _Almost,_ Tooru thinks, _but not today,_ and pretends he has won a consolation prize instead. At least he has the day to be with him.

That night, pouring over the hundreds of poems he's written by now, he finds _Iroha_ , thinks to makes new amendments, and continues to keep it somewhere safe. And when he settles down to sleep, Hajime right on the other side of makeshift walls, Tooru tells him goodnight, hears him breathe easy, and seeks to do the same.

  
  
  
  


 

**x**

  
  


 

_My esteemed Nekomata-dono,_

_I hope this letter finds you well, and that the winter is not too cold for you in Nara. I am writing back because I have received your letter here in Heian-_ _kyō, congratulating me on my ascension to junior first court rank, and I can only hope that I’ll serve the position well. I know many place my youth in question, and that I am too bright-eyed for the likes of such offices, but I can only promise an utmost devotion to the court and our emperor._  

_But with that in mind, I must question the rumors that have been rife on the grounds, lately. Are you actually considering putting your daughter up as the empress consort? I do not blame you, for it is an enviable spot in life, and one that I’m sure she will fill oh so well, but do consider her frail constitution. As a close friend and advisor of our dear emperor, I am afraid such a fine lady will be distressed with his hunting quests and propensity to muddy his robes. He is simply a mess! His handwriting is also illegible, and he cannot put his kanmuri on properly in the mornings. As a friend of the court, and no one with any stake in these possible dealings, I propose the crown prince instead, for he will offer the same advantages with a higher semblance of grace. I look forward to your next letters, and hope you will reconsider!_

  
  


 

 

 

**x**

  


 

_My dearest Sugawara-dono,_

_I apologize for the late letter this spring evening—and another sudden departure from our ox cart by Mibu the other day—but I am writing in concern over the young poetess in the Shimizu household, a close friend of yours. It appears that her family is positioned to propose a union to make her empress consort, and I fear that his distaste in poetry will put him off and embarrass her estate. As a fellow poet and close advisor of the emperor, I am only acting on everyone’s best interests, and hope you will intervene before any damage is made._

  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  


 

_My dearest Sugawara-dono,_

_Again, I must apologize for another late letter, but I feel that I must thank you for taking care of the situation I mentioned beforehand. I have always considered you in the highest regards, and this only cements this. We are diligently looking for the most righteous lady to make empress consort, despite our emperor’s apparent difficulties._  

 _Also, before I end this letter, let it be known that I sensed apparent cheekiness in your last letter. This will not do. I would just like to address this now._  

_I **do not** have affections for Emperor Horikawa, and have promptly burned your last letter in protest. It went up like a glorious sun. I hope this will not affect our future correspondences._

  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


_My dearest Sugawara-dono,_

_Sending wisteria flowers to my estate is not a ruse I find all too humorous. Emperor Horikawa is only a close friend of mine, one that I cherish no more than an adopted brother. I must ask you to cease and desist, or risk severing our ties altogether._

  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


_My dearest Sugawara-dono,_  

 _For the last time, I must tell you—you are terrible, apprehensible, and in no ways correct about the emperor. I will never speak to you again, for as sure as the leaves will shed in fall! I only wish Susanoo’s curses upon your household!_  

_But, on a side note—_

_I hope to still see you for a game of go this afternoon. Make sure to bring the bigger board this time._

  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


 

“The emperor is wreaking havoc upon court life as we know it,” Sugawara remarks casually over a game of go one late afternoon, when Tooru hits his twentieth autumn in the city of Heian-kyō. They've just come from a gathering amongst junior first court members, spending a better part of the day discussing the indiscretions of their beloved _Emperor Horikawa,_ the newest terror of a heavenly state.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Tooru whines, throwing back another cup of rice wine, hands too shaky to properly line the tiles.

Sugawara talks on anyway, ever amused. He is rife with recollection. Rumor has it that the emperor’s been sneaking out in common dress to aid the poorer sides of the city, handing out scoops of uncooked rice and various trinkets with the guards that dare to follow, and has even personally subsidized farmers that could not produce a fruitful harvest this season. As the emperor’s key advisor and best friend, Tooru has just spent a better part of the afternoon addressing such gossip, artfully dodging questions with new poetry samples (they love those) and funny little anecdotes (they _really_ love those), but he knows it will be hard to get them to believe much further. Sugawara certainly doesn't, from the way he waits for Tooru to tell him more.

“You're not a part of this, right? I can't imagine you dirtying your robes like that,” Sugawara asks, like he's about to laugh.

“Of course not,” Tooru lies. In fact, he had gone with Hajime every night this past week to help him; because although he had to admit that he wasn’t the biggest fan of handing out rice bags or mingling with the farm oxen, he did not mind the reading lessons with children (when they were _good_ , at least) or the neighborhood celebrations after. Like that first meeting all those years ago, Hajime looked right at home in the villages, the so-called _poorer_ sects of the city, and Tooru enjoyed seeing him so full of life. Going out afforded Hajime the sort of motion, _the action_ the court never could, and their adventures were enough to inspire ten new poems in the meanwhile (none of which were used at tea time today, for obvious reasons).

“So, what does his family think of all this?” Sugawara tests further. 

Tooru pours himself another cup, and it is gone in an instant. “I don't want to talk about this. Haven't I been angry enough with you in our correspondence?”

“Not enough, I'm afraid,” the other noble laughs out. “ _Susanoo_ does not scare me.”

Silence hits, and Tooru is thankful for another cup of sake.

“So, tell me, what about our delinquent emperor _enthralls_ so much?” Sugawara asks, and the other noble spits out his drink.

Tooru goes even redder in the face, _feels it_ , and knows it isn't solely a matter of having too much to drink. He dribbles some of his wine, made a fool. “He does not _enthrall_ me—”

“You've disrupted six appointments to see potential empress consorts,” Sugawara notes. “All in the last two weeks, too, mind you.” 

“Because there's no lady who'll _actually_ put up with him,” Tooru counters, more lightheaded than anything. “I'm just saving all of them the trouble,” he hiccups, throwing a go tile at Sugawara. Laying his head on the table below, he groans and refuses to get up. 

“You. Are. _Smitten_ ,” Sugawara singsongs. “And it might be better on your system if you admit that now.” Without much of a fight, Tooru lets Sugawara take away his bottle and cup, getting up from the table to answer a knock at the door. Tooru hears a small gasp and proceeds to hide further in the bend of his arms.

“G-good afternoon, Emperor Horikawa!”

“Hi. Is Tooru here?”

Tooru does not stir from the table, too drunk to face the likes of Hajime.

“Just _how_ much did he have to drink?” he asks.

“Well, he finished off a bottle when he first got here,” Sugawara answers. “And maybe another one while we were setting up for our game of go…”

“Oh, _quiet_ , Sugawara!” Tooru barks to him, raising his head back up from the table. He comes face to face with Hajime instead, all runny-nosed and scowling, and sniffles back in something irrevocably distasteful. 

“Hard day?” Hajime turns to ask Sugawara. “He only _ugly cries_ when he's had a hard day.” 

“Incredibly,” he sighs out. “First rank juniors had a morning meeting today, and our poor poet was bombarded with all sorts of questions. I've never seen a court usually so _idle_ this fired up. They do love their gossip.” 

Hajime sits down next to Tooru and shakes his head when he takes a good look at him. Pressing a pinch of fingers to his forehead, Hajime unsticks a go piece from Tooru’s face and softens from something about to scold. He even turns to Sugawara, asks for the room alone, and nods graciously when he obliges.

“ _Hajime_?” Tooru just lies his head back down, sick to his stomach, and wishes this would all go away. “Are you here to yell at me?” he inquires miserably.

“No,” Hajime says, sifting around in boxes for a clean towel. When he finds one, he takes the tea kettle from the tray and pours out some of the water on it, settling back down to press it over Tooru’s head. He expects it to tickle, but it doesn’t; the cloth blankets Tooru all lukewarm and kind, allowing for the draw of a deep breath. 

“Well, you’re not so bad at taking care of the sick...for someone who’s never been ill a day in their life, at least,” Tooru tells him with a smile, admitting to himself that he enjoys the attention. Definitely still drunk, he brings himself closer to Hajime without abandon, finding the strength to sit up before collapsing against his shoulder. Tooru takes in the smell of chrysanthemum and river mud against robes and a bare neck. _Oh, how very Hajime,_ he thinks _, and oh, how I’d like to stay,_ he wishes, to no one in particular.

“It’s the least I can do,” answers Hajime, all forthright as usual. Tooru expects the following derisions as usual, like _I’m always looking after brats like you_ or _poets are always so high maintenance,_ but no such thing ever comes.

“And what do you mean by that?” Tooru asks. 

“You were asked about my activities, and my lack of _empress._ That’s what they all want to know, right?” Hajime asks him right back. “You fought them all off for me.”

Tooru only smiles. “I am an expert at handling that for you by now, with all due respect,” he says with all the assurance the country has to offer, perhaps too _out of mind_ to keep any modesty. “I keep whole _anthologies_ in case people ask about you. My poems distract from the cause at hand.” 

“Well, it shouldn’t be that way, Tooru. I should be able to fight, too, and _be strong_ —”

Tooru scoffs. “But you are strong,” he mutters into Hajime’s ear. “Who said you aren’t? I’ll write something _scathing_ about them.”

“ _What_?”

“The most _troubling_ haiku I can dare muster.”

Silence erupts once more, but it does not remain. It takes a moment, but Hajime begins to laugh, and he even takes the liberty of leaning on Tooru right back. He thinks of how ridiculous— _unsightly—_ this whole display must be, to be so close in another noble’s house, but Tooru quickly decides it doesn’t matter in the slightest; in fact his strength swells when Hajime runs a hand up Tooru’s spine, and he cannot help but wonder if Hajime feels the exact same way with him. 

“No more of this _being strong_ business,” Tooru whispers against Hajime’s robes, knowing there’s just about another ten million other things he could be saying, but even drunkenness will not free him. “No more,” he just repeats once more, nuzzled in and safe.

Hajime obliges with nothing more than a nod, and the two of them remain like this for just a little while longer. 

“You're going to rule, and history will never forget you,” Tooru says back to him, knowing how much the next part will hurt. “And I'm going to find you an empress consort, the right one, the _perfect_ one, and your son will learn from the best.”

“But Tooru _—_ ”

Tooru hiccups hard, breathing out to remain composed. He blames the wine, and always will. “And he'll have the best teacher to learn from, all your children will, because I'm surely the best poet in the nation, and maybe I'll _finally_ get you to like poetry, if they are the ones to recite them—” 

“ _Tooru._ ” The way Hajime says his name stops Tooru dead, and he wonders if he really might die right here in his care. But the thing is, Hajime would never let Tooru do such a thing like _die_ , and he props him up by the shoulders to prove it. Tooru closes his eyes before realizing he's no longer dizzy, and sets his sights out of tipsiness. Hajime remains in his vision, ruddy cheeks all too funny on a twenty-year old, but he doesn't cower away from it. He never, ever does.

“I don't want an empress consort,” he says, possibly loud enough for the handmaidens to hear, but Hajime doesn't seem to care.

“ _Two empress consorts,_ then?” Tooru jokes.

“None of those things,” Hajime tells him gravely.

“What do you want, then?” Tooru asks, nothing but tentative, and Hajime inches closer and closer. “How can I…” He breathes out, when Hajime doesn't stop. “...help you?” he finishes, looming close. Lips almost touch, and Tooru closes his eyes to welcome something new, something old _,_ something that has always, always been—from past to present to future—and swallows. The smallest distance remains, that taunting _almost,_ always, always an _almost,_ and Tooru can only seek to close it, once and for all—

“Wait! _Wait!"_  

But when the door comes barreling open, Sugawara coming through it with a few of his friends, the two of them part immediately, never getting to initiate the kiss. Tooru flies back on the floor, right on his elbows, and Hajime stays frozen in place. All of Sugawara’s company bows at once, prostrated in the utmost respect, and immediately give their regards to _Emperor Horikawa._ Tooru watches him squirm in return, and winces when he knows Hajime was never built for such pomp and circumstance. 

“I'll...I’ll see you later,” Hajime announces, right at Tooru for everyone else to hear, and goes to the door in a hurry. “You know where to find me.” Tooru only nods, fingers still pressed to his lips, just as the other aristocrats begin whispering amongst themselves. 

_“Those two are always together, aren't they?”_

_“It would be a shame if they were defying the court together! Did you hear about his village visits?”_

Looking extra sorry, Sugawara shushes them all at once and helps Tooru off the ground, only to drag him outside under the guise of needing _fresh air_.

“I'm so sorry, Tooru,” Sugawara says with the shake of his head. “I _completely_ forgot I was having a few friends over this evening, and once they saw the emperor's guards there was no stopping them.” 

“It's okay,” Tooru breathes out, shaking his head free from the dizziness. “It's, _um,_ fine, really.” 

“You seem shaken up. Did you two get into a fight?”

Shaking his head, Tooru can only muster the bitterest smile. “No...um. _No,”_ he stutters. “It was _something else. And I..._ I have to go! I’ll see you later!” he decides at the last second.

“Where are you going?”

Tooru doesn't answer, head simmering like a lit gunpowder keg. _Keep moving,_ he urges of himself, when the other nobles come clamoring at the door with questions and accusations _._ He finds a pair of mismatched geta sandals by the door and slips them on the way down the stairs, determined to get as far as possible. Forget composure, _your poise_. _Keep going,_ he tells himself instead, as he forces himself into a sprint and off the grounds of Sugawara's estate. No one follows. 

His throat catches in something burning because he isn't used to running this much, but he doesn't dare stop.

  
  
  
  


 

**x**

  
  
  
  


 

 

Tooru runs and runs, up streets and down alleys, until he comes across one of the more prominent temples in Heian-kyō. Head still light and drunk with pounding, he bows to the looming facade of the Sai-ji, shakes his head clean of his impurest thoughts, and staggers past the gates. Tooru even wonders if the gods will eat him alive for impudence, expecting the most gruesome demise upon entrance. But when they don't offer any such comfort, and Tooru gets to live, he curses out to any _kami_ that might be eavesdropping, whether it is the likes of Susanoo, Amaterasu, or Tsukuyomi. He cranes his neck up to the forming dusk and exhales deep, finally catching his breath when he realizes his nonsense, and ambles up the grounds. 

A small garden offers solace up ahead. Tooru sits himself down, hidden behind one of the eden’s lined trees, and waits for his solitude to not to feel so damning. Clacking footsteps follow behind him, prodding and heavy.

“You are the great shame of this nation.” Tooru nearly gasps when he hears the voice call out, stern and deep. He surmises that the gods are on to him after all, and holds his breath for the end.

“I am trying to _help_ this nation!” another voice bellows instead, and Tooru knows it instantly. _Hajime._ It is Hajime calling, and Tooru can barely keep himself from going out to see him— 

“And what do you know of politics?” the unknown voice refutes before Tooru gets the chance. “What do you know other than _horse riding_ and stealing imperial reserves to feed peasants?”

“I am now _twenty_! I have been long overdue to lead, and I _had_ to, somehow—”

“You call what you do _leading_? You are nothing more than a thug. _A thief!_ ”

Quiet rises up in the worst way possible, _unresolved,_ and Tooru only cups his mouth as to avoid being heard. He feels tears bead the corner of his eyes, but he shoos them away as soon as they form.

“ _Father._ ” Tooru hates hearing Hajime like this. “ _Father,_ you can’t just—" 

“ _You have summer eyes_ , your mother once told me. _Warm,_ like that might be a good and _honest_ thing—but this country has always been run by a cool touch, and that is something you’ll never have!”

“ _Father!”_

“You will never be the emperor!” 

“But I _will!_ I _will be!_ Better than you, or anyone else—”

A hard smack hits the air, and the sleeping sparrows flee their roosts. Tooru almost loses it when he feels the trunk of the tree rumble behind him, and he hears the stifled breath of his best friend, about to break into tears. He knows the sound of his strain more than anyone else, and prays for Hajime not to fall prey.

But the thing is, Tooru has always known that prayers aren’t enough for anything, and that staying still has never been his _forte._ So he wills himself out from hiding altogether and brings Hajime with him, too. Hands come together once more, despite the people that will see, the fathers that will judge, and bring Hajime to safety. 

“ _Tooru_!”

They go on. Geta sandals dig into the earth, and two boys run. Both of them cry, one harder than the other, but not enough to blind the paths ahead.

“We have to keep trying,” Tooru insists, when they’re on the move, _always on the move,_ hands unclasping and clasping again. 

“I know,” Hajime only answers, still shaken up. “I know.” 

And so they go. Past the courts, shedding their heavy robes, donning disguises _._ They defy and defy, blessing the villages with bags of rice and subsidies, stolen trinkets and paid dowries. They defy and defy, past the guards that come after them by nightfall when they return to the emperor’s homes, by horses stolen from imperial stables.

And so they ride, past the city limits of Heian-kyō. When their torches run out and nearly singe their robe sleeves, a banquet of fireflies are the only light to guide their way. Stars hang up above, littered across the dark expanse of sky, and Tooru breathes up like he might inhale its heaven.

  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  


 

 

They don't talk the entire journey to Nara, because neither one of them dares to break the peace of it. Tooru just writes poems in his head in the meanwhile, while Hajime sprints up ahead (but never out of complete sight). 

The night burns thick and horses slow down, as they're bound to do. Tooru and Hajime end up stopping in a local village for new ones, all to pay their shares and a little extra for the last minute hospitality. They dare not take anymore on the chance someone recognizes either one of them, and they leave for the wild on little rest and hungry stomachs. They cup their hands to bordering riverbanks instead, and drink until they are nearly full, only to continue on their moonlit path.

Nara is theirs by morning, when the two of them stagger to a familiar house by a blooming wisteria tree. The horizon is pale with a light not yet morning, and the servants are just barely awake to start their daily routines. In a sigh, Hajime just goes to the tree to tie their horses, almost collapses onto the deck ahead after, but catches himself when he thinks Tooru can't see. But Tooru _does_ see, and flinches at the sight of him like this. 

“What do we do now?” Tooru asks, even though he's the one who led Hajime away from the temple in the first place.

“I don't know.” Hajime looks out to the horizon, voice nothing but wind-beaten raspiness. Tooru only thinks how hasn't felt this raw in a long time, too.

Out of the silence, the two of them hear a few doors slide open and shut behind them. A few housekeepers whisper about unexpected guests (“ _aristocrats are sitting right outside the guesthouse!”)_ and how no one’s had a chance to clean, but neither of them (even _Tooru_ , this time) care too much about upkeep. Hajime even barges into the room and tells them all to take a stroll—the _longest_ one they can, just so they can have _some_ semblance of peace—and leave the house in their care. From there, Hajime just takes Tooru’s hand, abrupt as usual but never unwarranted, and leads him inside, past their wisteria tree and the rest of the searching world. 

“Hajime,” Tooru calls out in small syllables, and Hajime reaches over to slide the door shut. He keeps close like he might need to hear it again— _Hajime, Hajime, Hajime—_ and Tooru can only oblige him further.

“ _Hajime,”_ Tooru says once more in a plea of his own, when neither one of them can keep their distance any longer.

The rest of the morning is spent own their own. Their first kiss, cautious and god fearing and barely the brush of two lips, dissolves into a mess of more. (And oh, how Tooru has always wanted _more._ ) They fall onto the tatami mats this way, arms wrung up and bodies arched into the other, and confess by the way of sighs and lingering touches. When light breaks in through the windows and cracks under doors, Tooru lets it spill over onto them in shadows, never daring to hide from the day.

Geta sandals slip off, and legs mingle in closeness. Outer robes are shed, leaving just the thin kosode garments underneath, and Tooru aches at the small instance of nakedness left in its wake. He lets his fingertips trickle over Hajime’s freckled collarbones, lets his palm cup one of his bare and burdened shoulders. At once, with something wanting, selfish to the core, Tooru decides that his hands have to be the ones to dance between cloth and Hajime’s skin.

Forget piety. _Modesty._ When he raises himself to kiss Hajime deep, his own kosode drooping down helplessly down his back, still kept on by a tied obi but barely so, he decides that he's done enough waiting. They both have, past the taunting promise of _almost_. With nothing left to hold them back, they bare into each other because they both know they can take it, and seek solace in whatever time they might have left.

  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  


 

_Hajime._

_I make no claims to know what's best for our futures anymore. Because as much as I want us both to find our peaks, and stay there until we are old and plump and dead from laughing, I know that our roads will live for the strain of our journey. How are we to keep making it, when this world keeps getting in the way?_  
  
_All I do know, past anything I do know about the arts, or literature, or your favorites and qualms, is that I choose you to make this journey with. I choose you to live out this life with, even if I am a man of superior taste and class, and you dare to hate poetry._

 


	2. chrysanthemum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For reference, this is the poem ["Iroha."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha)

 

 

 

 

“Are you even paying attention to me anymore?” 

On a Sunday evening over decaf coffee and red bean cakes, Oikawa snaps out of a dreaming, pen still in his hand, and blinks up at the other side of the table.

“Can you repeat the question?” the curator asks innocently. Batting his eyelashes at one Matsukawa Issei, a journalist for the arts and culture section at the _Mainichi Shimbun,_ the latter clicks his tongue, flicks the ash of his cigarette at Oikawa, and scribbles something down.

“What are you writing?” Oikawa asks, trying to peek.

Matsukawa does not answer at first. When he is done writing his snippet, he simply clears his throat, reading: _“_ the organizer for the last five years, historian Oikawa Tooru, is resilient against my calls back to reality. He simply stares at his clipboard like a schoolboy with a crush, doodling _flowers_ of all things, and ignores all my questions about his famed exhibit.”

Oikawa rolls his eyes, but keeps listening anyway.

“One wonders if this is a mark of him tiring of it, and if he will be ready to return to Tokyo’s museum scene anytime soon. Trusted sources say his _friends_ certainly miss him for the most part, and it'd be a shame if he didn't think to at least _visit_ once in awhile, especially as everyone has grown older, _separate ways_ all but inevitable—”

“Okay, okay! I get the point,” Oikawa relents, peevishly taking a sip of his coffee. “But really, what are you even going to write about this time, anyway? You cover the exhibit _every year_. I'm sure your readership, not to mention your _editor_ , is tired of the same old thing.”

Matsukawa hums along to the pleasant little ballad playing in the background before answering. “On the contrary, _my dear_. People can't get enough of _‘Almost.’_ ” At this, he wags his pencil in Oikawa’s direction. “So I will keep writing about it as long as I can sell newspapers.”

Oikawa scrunches up in a small frown.

“What?” Matsukawa asks, pursing his lips to blow smoke. 

“This is off the record. Meaning, you won't write about this. You won't tell _anyone_ about this,” Oikawa warns.

“I know what _off the record_ means.”

“I'm _serious,_ Mattsun,” Oikawa whines, much in the same way he always has to him, ever since their college days in Tokyo. As the usual procedure for an agreement, Matsukawa stamps out his cigarette altogether—the ultimate promise—and folds his hands over the table. Oikawa accepts it, leans in close so the other shop patrons don't hear, and tells him. 

“This might be the last year I'm holding the exhibit.”

Matsukawa’s gaze goes wide. “You're not serious,” he says, peering down at Oikawa’s clipboard.

“I am. I mean, I _could_ be. I do _love_ …” (Oikawa stops himself at this) “Well, _like,_ my work. It’s just...I don’t know.”

“You've spent _years_ collecting—”

“I know,” Oikawa interrupts, before Matsukawa launches into the same diatribe his father and mother and everyone else has given him. “It's just...I don't know,” he sputters out. “I'm just starting to wonder if this has all been worth it, if I'm being honest.”

“If you don't count _worldwide critical acclaim_ as something _worth it,_ I don't know what to think of you,” Matsukawa jokes, taking a sip of his latte.

“You know what I mean,” Oikawa hisses. “You're one of the only people who do.”

“This isn't about... _you know,_ is it?”

Oikawa doesn't answer.

Matsukawa peers past his cup, sighs, and takes another strong swig. When he puts the cup down, he stares straight ahead and offers a reluctant shake of the head. “I get it. You've been looking for a _really_ long time. Connections. _All those letters_ —and it was fun when we were younger and you could spend all your time hiding in libraries and archives, but we’re nearing, what? _Twenty-six_ this year _?_ Maybe you should just cut your losses and accept that maybe it's not about _that_ , anymore.” 

“Say it, Mattsun,” Oikawa insists. “Give it more respect than _that._ ”

“And _why_ should I give you anymore grief?”

“ _Just say it_.”

“Fine,” Matsukawa sighs out. He just takes out a fresh cigarette, lights it, and takes a deep and wavering huff. There is a glimmer of something sad in his eye, something Tooru always recognizes. 

“Well?”

Matsukawa shakes his head. Smoke rises in the air.

“ _Reincarnation_.”

Oikawa shivers at the word, stands by it, and sits upright. Silence between them wafts in, leaving them only with smooth notes of coffee shop jazz and distant casual conversation.

“Maybe those letter writers...those _pairs_ you've dug up through the years...maybe that's all they are. Good stories by their own right, made by _different people_. Who says they have to be connected?” 

Shaking his head, Oikawa takes another gulp from his coffee cup. He can't remember the last time three sugars has felt so bitter. “I know,” he answers. “I know it sounds _ridiculous_ and—”

“It's not,” Matsukawa tries to say. “After hearing you talk about it for so many years, I _know_ it's not. But consider that maybe it's time to move on from it. Keep your exhibit running, tell some good stories, and pay the rent for that empty penthouse apartment of yours.” Oikawa laughs at this, and Matsukawa can't help but give up a smile, too.

“I suppose,” Oikawa relents.

“And besides,”Matsukawa says with another deep huff, staring down at Oikawa’s doodles and the vague outline of a low-hanging tree, “it's not like you have any stake in this anyway. Two reincarnated lovers must be long gone by now, right? _Nirvana_ and whatnot?”

Listlessly, Oikawa just nods, and thinks to tell Matsukawa about the daydreams—the ones that always seem too real, tangible by the smell of chrysanthemums or the feel of someone’s hand in his—and resigns himself to a bite of cake. _Not this time._ With closed eyes, just a moment’s worth to find his footing, he just tells himself he is working too hard again, and that he cannot always live in the letters he reads.

“But I guess I wouldn't be _mourning_ , if you closed the place down, either,” Matsukawa says. “But that's just me.”

“I know,” Oikawa laughs out.

With that, Oikawa shoos away the rest of his troubles. He draws a smile onto his face for a final touch, motions towards Matsukawa’s notepad, and tells him to continue on with the interview. It goes as planned, until their coffee runs cold and Oikawa tires from talking on about history. A barista comes over to say they'll be closing soon.

“Say, how about we go grab a drink?” Matsukawa suggests when they're leaving the shop. “Makki said he's meeting up with an old friend from high school down the street for a few. _Hell,_ I'll even buy you a beer if you come. You look like you need one.”

Oikawa shakes his head, honestly thinking about it. “Better not,” he decides, thinking of all the new letters back at the house he has to sift through.

“Gotta pay that rent somehow, right?” Matsukawa smirks.

“Yeah” comes with a tiny scoff. “Next time then?” Oikawa offers.

Matsukawa shakes his head at the answer and starts walking off in the opposite direction up the block. “Don't _next time_ me. That just means you're going to hole yourself up in a room with research for the next five months. Or the next time I come looking for a piece to write.”

“Well, what do you want me to do, then?” Oikawa asks.

“Help throw a party we’re throwing at the end of the week! We’re having cabbage rolls for spring,” Matsukawa trails off, waving his phone in the air. “I'll text you the details!”

“Okay.”

At this, Tooru just waves even though Matsukawa can't see, and makes that same hand into a fist. A small touch ripples across the surface of his palm once more, one that wants to stay but can't—not yet, anyway—and leaves in the next moment with the wind.

  
  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


_My esteemed Emperor Horikawa,_

_Today, I am writing to you from a guesthouse in Osaka. It's cold here, as it should be for the likes of winter, and I thought it would be a good idea to keep my hands busy writing in some capacity, lest they freeze. I certainly do not miss you, because such thoughts are never fruitful when trying to compose the masterpieces of my caliber, but feel free to miss me as much as you want. I certainly know my absence has been noted. Has your mother been pestering you about finding an empress consort again? Not that I care._  

_Well, I do not mean to keep you. Another reason for this letter is that Sugawara-dono tells me you've developed a bit of a cough over the last couple of weeks. Please look after yourself, and whenever you go out to help the villagers, because it would be a shame if you caught your death over a cold._

  
  


 

 

 

**x**

  
  
  


“Former Emperor Shirakawa says he'll have all your poems burned. And then _you_ , on a funeral pyre, if you don’t quit,” Sugawara insists, in a whisper so loud the rest of the court can hear him.

“Oh? How nice,” Tooru sighs out, meandering along the main road leading up to the imperial castle one afternoon. He brushes the pollen off his shoulders, notes how this spring feels more humid than most, like a summer come too early, or a monsoon on the horizon, and forms the beginning of another piece to write in his head. _A Terrible Spring._ Sugawara even has to kick the back of Tooru’s shin to get his attention, something which the latter strongly objects.

“This is _serious_!” warns Sugawara. “I’ve heard all the whisperings inside the court while you were away. He means to have to tortured, _murdered_. Worst of all, _discredited._ You aren't safe here anymore, Tooru-dono. Not as long as you stay by the emperor’s side.” 

Tooru feels dread race up his back, making goosebumps along the way, but he holds his ground with a pleasant little smile. “It's been two years since he caught us in Nara,” Tooru reminds Sugawara (and reassures himself, mostly). “The people almost _rioted_ when they saw us under guard custody, don't you remember? He can't touch us. The public loves both of us too much for anything to happen.” 

“And when has anything the former emperor done been _in the spotlight_?” Sugawara asks, when they arrive at the palace grounds. Someone calls, and the two nobles jolt their heads up.

Hajime is already waiting at the gates, trying hard not to smile, and the two aristocrats just exchange glances; with a resigned sigh, Sugawara takes this as his cue to leave, waving Tooru off with a sleeved hand and offering a bow for the emperor. He tells Tooru to bring the go board next time, in exchange for the finest oolong tea the either of them has ever tasted.

Hajime shakes his head, peering down the road. “I don't know why you ever play him. You always lose.”

“It's nice to see you, too, Hajime,” Tooru lilts, like they haven't just spent another year apart. Hajime rolls his eyes, pressing a hand, grip weaker than usual, up Tooru’s sokutai sleeve. 

They decide to go to Tooru’s house today, a new and spacious abode right off the main road, and make up for lost time behind high walls and shut doors. They talk while they kiss and _sigh_ , filling in the little details until they are caught up. _Tooru has contributed to yet another anthology for the upcoming autumn,_ and outer robes are shed and thrown on the mats in celebration. _Hajime had to put his favorite horse to rest, after a particularly terrible illness,_ and he mourns with a sigh down the nape of Tooru’s neck, cooing and soft _._ It goes on like this—’ _oh, I guess I got new house cook today’_ and ‘ _I still hate poetry’_ and _‘it's okay, even if that’s the most despicable thing I’ve ever heard’—_ until neither one of them can find the breath or strength to say much else. It is then that Tooru learns, right in the spring of his twenty-second year, that wanting is a not a graceful thing. He will take it anyway, because a year’s wait is never fun. No wait ever is.

In the midst of things, both of them should too engulfed to make anything else known, but Tooru remembers Sugawara’s words. They are too ominous to be ignored. At once, he tries to form them himself— _your father isn't happy with us, and I'm scared,_ _and we shouldn’t do this anymore,_ but he can only gasp out in vowels instead. _We shouldn't be together._ Tooru clutches onto Hajime’s hand instead and defies every watching god that tells them to part.

Once they finish and help each other put their robes back on, night catches through the windows and puts the dusk to rest. Tooru lets himself hang close to Hajime regardless of night or day, as if to help close the gap a year makes.

In all of his twenty-two years, Tooru has never felt the need to be _blatant_ , because _blatant_ was what made people ungraceful and gaudy—but he thinks it might be okay just this once, and especially in private. Without another thought about it, he just presses Hajime’s collar back into neatness, drapes himself over his back, and leaves a dragging kiss on the shell of his emperor’s ear.

“Won’t you stay here tonight?” Tooru asks, putting himself on the line, and Hajime just pecks him on the cheek right back. Bemused, Tooru watches Hajime get up to slide the terrace door open, hands unlinking along the way, and pretends he is unfazed by the graze of parting fingers. (And Hajime’s grip really _has_ gotten weaker, Tooru muses.) He hides any attempt at reaching for Hajime under a sokutai sleeve, and merely feints out one of his highest caliber grins in case he looks back. 

“I will,” Hajime answers, head still out the door. “I'll come back, and then I’ll stay with you tonight. It's just that I promised I'd visit the villages by the Kamo River this evening, you know, after what I told you about the—" 

“ _The flooding_. I know,” Tooru answers swiftly, vaguely remembering that part of the conversation while undressing before. “You said a lot of houses were damaged on the riverbank. Do you want me to come with you?”

Hajime shakes his head, shifting on his geta sandals in the doorway. “You've had a long day already. Besides, I doubt you'd want to get your robes _muddied_.”

“I've learned that I am quite exquisite even in the most _ruined of robes_ , and that I'm _really_ not as delicate as you make me,” Tooru jokes past that rising dread forming in his stomach this time, but keeps himself composed past it.

“I'll be back before you know it,” Hajime still denies him. “And we can have dinner together and take a stroll after. Maybe you'll find inspiration for the next _Genji Monogatari_ , or something.”

“Fine!” Tooru sighs, withering back down on his futon. Sights veer away before finding Hajime once more, low and overcast. “Just don't come crying to me when your father sends the guards after you again.”

“Like that ever works,” Hajime musters with his head held high, no longer jittery over the likes of a _cloistered emperor_. “I don't acknowledge cowards.”

Tooru stares on, amazed before finding peace. He forgets—sometimes past the gentle touches under cloth, or the reassurances of _I’ll be back before you know it—_ that it is this silent show of strength that puts him at ease more than anything else. Instantly, he thinks back to when he was eighteen and saw the boy in the field with the sky over his shoulders, standing tall upon the earth but so willing to live in it, and knows not to hold him back.

“I'll see you later, then,” Tooru says with no trace of snark or tease. He keeps himself sprawled out over his linens, and knows that it might be okay to be unabashed for once.

At the honesty of it, Hajime relents for a moment and kneels down to kiss him.

  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  


 

 

 

The days go on like this for another year. On most of them, barring a particularly bad cough or similar colds, Hajime goes out to the different villages skirting Heian-kyō, bringing a few guards on his side with extra hands ready to help and serve. Tooru comes along too sometimes, reading to children or teaching the finer points of verses, and lobbies aristocrats on the nights he isn't. With a revised version of _The Merit of Persistence in the Court_ , Tooru tells them all about the trendiness of civic spirit, and that all gods, shinto or otherwise, would gift them with bountiful good karma if they committed themselves to the cause in mind, body, and spirit. It had been a strangely alluring tactic for some volunteers (but mostly donations), something that Tooru still held himself in high esteem for either way.

Nights alone are a different story. On the days Tooru doesn’t go into the villages or try to persuade the other aristocrats to help, he mostly keeps quiet at home, working on poem after poem. He writes endlessly, just to keep busy, dinner growing cold until Hajime comes through the doorway and kicks off his shoes. When his imagination runs wild again—a very typical affair—Tooru tells himself to stop thinking of the absolute worst, and that Hajime won’t get caught; regardless, his poems have been a mess, and _distracted_ in lyrical form.

The thing is, Hajime always returns, sometimes with satsumas or whatever’s in season, and Tooru can breathe easy. Hajime’s even become a bit of a mainstay here at the house, choosing to sleep and eat most nights away from the imperial grounds. From everything to finding his favorite spot at the table, or sleeping closer towards the open slit of a terrace door, or the way he makes all their linens smell like chrysanthemum, Tooru notices all of Hajime’s habits and welcomes them all into the estate. 

“I heard you come back last night,” Tooru mutters, hidden behind his dinner bowl one evening. He pretends the steam from his dinner is causing the redness on his face, and thinks to compose a child’s verse about it for his next visit.

Hajime coughs up some rice, sputters continuing after clearing his throat. He's had a bad cough all day. “What?” he chokes out, catching his breath. “Did I wake you up?”

“I couldn't really sleep anyway,” Tooru says, shrugging. “So it's fine. _Besides_ , if I wasn’t awake, I wouldn't be able to hear the things you whispered in my ear, wouldn't I?”

Horror spreads across Hajime’s face, and Tooru takes utmost delight in it. “You _didn't_.”

“Oh, but I did,” Tooru muses, looking away innocently. “You can get poetic when you really want to. I might even have some competition, so I better watch out—” 

“Oh, _quiet_ —” Hajime starts, leaning over his place at the table to reach for him and sending Tooru into the biggest laughing fit. Tooru falls over, back first onto the tatami mats, wondering if he's had too much to drink or eat to be this merry, and composes himself before he gets too out of hand. When he sits up to find his place, matting down his robes and still giggling in the meanwhile, he notices Hajime’s doubled over on his end, too.

“Oh, no need to be so embarrassed!” 

A rice bowl, overturned, lets a few grains escape. A cup of tea, spilled, waterfalls off the edge in quick little drops. Hajime still hasn't risen, not even to scold, and Tooru hears an incoming servant scream outside the door. Feet _pitter patter_ across the way from there, scrambling for assistance.

“Hajime?” Tooru goes over to him, watches him shake his head and reveal redness on his sleeve. “Hajime, what's wrong?”he tries to ask, pretending not to see _blood_.

“Swallowed a fishbone,” he says, still wheezing. “I'll be fine.”

“No, you're not.” Tooru thinks back to Sugawara telling him about _Hajime’s persistent cough_ back in Osaka last spring, and how he had brushed it off as something seasonal.“Your cough’s been getting worse since I came back to the city! Something is obviously wrong,” he puts together, scathing because he should have realized it sooner himself.

“Just a bad day.”

“ _Hajime,_ ” Tooru trembles out. “You've been working yourself too hard.”

Hajime sits back upright, almost as if to prove a point. “I can't stop now. Not when you've worked to get all this support from the first ranks and there's still people who need help and—” he stops mid sentence again, kneeled over with his forehead pressed to the floor, almost as if in a last ditch prayer. He wretches terribly again, gasping for air, and Tooru runs to get him help.

Sleeves fluttering behind him, torchlights extinguished along the walls from the wind of a mad rush, footfalls land heavy and anchoring in the worst way anyway. A stomach drops, and fingertips jolt into numbness, and tell Tooru about the terrible omens ahead. Sugawara’s words come ringing once more, _he’ll burn you,_ and keep Tooru on the verge of breaking down altogether. _He’ll burn you,_ he repeats to himself once more, when he looks out at the darkness ahead and sees a shadow darker than black; like a demon in the night, a cloistered emperor waves and walk on with his guards, innocent as far as his distance goes.

  
  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  


 

 _Sugawara-dono,_  

_I apologize for not writing back in so long! Things have been hectic in my estate as of late, and I wanted the proper chance to deliver my correspondence when I could finally settle down. I have been trying to wrangle the other nobles back in my favor for village donations, but  it has been nothing less than a struggle convincing them that Emperor Horikawa is in full health._

_As for that issue at hand, I must send along his gratitude for the special oolong tea you've given to the kitchen. He drinks it regularly, and the house cook has been nothing but diligent in preparing it for us everyday. In fact, he has served us so well through this whole ordeal, and I must remember to thank whoever sent him to the estate. I am sure that in no time, with everyone’s efforts, Emperor Horikawa will go back to leading his country, and that we will all be able to rest easy because of it. We just need a little more time. We are surely almost there._

_And besides, at least these empress consorts to-be are staying clear from him. One must always look at the bright side of things, I suppose._

_Ah, well, don't let me keep you. Osaka’s sights are too wonderful for you to bury your nose in parchment!_  

_Until next time._

  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


_Sugawara-dono._

_Again, I am sorry for the lack of response. Sometimes, when the winter is cold I find it hard to write my brush, and I’d rather not subject you to degraded penmanship. Just know that I thought about writing to you, and that I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive this poet. Enough about me, though. How is Osaka for you at the moment? Have you grown tired of the region?_

_I hear that you are coming back to Heian-kyō soon, and it will be nice to have you back in the city. Emperor Horikawa is no match for me in game of go, and I must concede that you were the greatest foe I’ve ever had on the board. And as my wretched opponent, it is still so kind to know that you ask so diligently about our emperor, and for that I can eternally grateful. Thank you for the tea again, as well as the new recommendation for a doctor on the south end of the city. The others haven’t said anything useful at all, and maybe this one will offer a better prognosis. What could he even have? What is making him so ill? I just cannot figure it out._

_Anyways, I’ll write back soon. Promise._

 

 

  
  
  
**x**  


 

 

(He never does.)

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


The following year pieces itself together by their good and bad days, with no permanent relief in sight either way. On the evenings when he can, Hajime goes out into the villages and holds himself together well: under his care— _his rule,_ as Tooru sees it—the impoverished become a little less so, and the hungry have a little more to eat out of their bowls. He meets with the elderly and children alike, and makes the sort of promises he surely, surely means to keep.

On good days like this, Hajime smiles more—though more subdued than usual—and carries the tidings all the way home to Tooru. They continue to have dinner together, laughing at the things they can over fish, rice, and sake in the evenings, telling stories about the life they'd like to have ten or twenty or thirty years from now. After that, the two of them take strolls in the garden or attend poetry sessions (which Hajime _still_ despises, but doesn't necessarily _mind,_ especially when Tooru is the one doing the readings). By the dead of the night, there is little reading or talking at all, all exchanged for undressings. Hands make their rightful passage between cloth and winter skin, and the both of them let the rest of the world end by warmth and aching and sputtered little calls. A little death, as they might call it.

But the world never really ends. It must go on, for better or for worse.

Especially _worse._ Because sometimes, Tooru will wake up to another good day, or a third, or even a whole week’s worth, if he's lucky; but more often than not, he will wake up to bad news, or the start of storms and bad runs. Blood stains their linens. The taste of copper persists in Hajime’s kisses. Forced appetites reign, and dizziness prevails on short strolls. Some mornings, Hajime can't even get out of bed until noon, and spends the whole day in feverish fits. 

On one of those particularly bad days (the tenth _consecutive_ , in fact), Tooru keeps himself shut away in another room in his estate, prayers made in private. He clutches his first poem, _Iroha_ , in his fingertips, and makes selfish bargains to whoever will listen. For Hajime to get better, he promises the world and the things he cannot reach.

To _Susanoo_ , he says, _“I will dive the deepest seas.”_

To _Tsukuyomi,_ he says, _“I will wake the sleeping world.”_

To _Amaterasu,_ he says, _“I will stare into the sun.”_

And from there, he keeps going down the list. Desperate stanzas have never been the kind to fall from his lips, but he knows he's neglected the gods long enough, and has taunted them beyond repair. When he runs out of Shinto deities to address, Tooru then thinks of the vague Buddhist teachings he’s read, and their whispers about _nirvana_ and the clean souls that get to go there. A spike of pride juts into him when he thinks of no one purer than Hajime, and he smiles bitterly across the confines of his robe sleeve. _Heaven is only a step away. If he is to die, he will define the stars._  

_No._

_He will get better!_

Tooru curses himself for wandering into such territory in the first place, and takes a deep breath until he is steady again.

“Tooru.” A knock comes at the door, but it isn’t Hajime.

Tooru opens his eyes, sees Sugawara’s shadow through the screen outside, and holds his breath to pretend he isn't there. Sugawara keeps knocking anyway, and Tooru ignores it.

_“He’s not getting any better.”_

Tooru draws his knees in at the accusation—the _audacity_ that Hajime wouldn't get better—and buries himself further in solitude. _Tomorrow_ , he just thinks once more, past all his prayers and hypotheses, like the last ten days he's had to deal with this, because _he will get better tomorrow._ He _wills_ it. After all, Hajime has been due for a good day (or week, or month, _or forever_ ) for a while, and he knows it is just a matter of waiting.

Another knock comes at the door, barely one at all. _“Tooru”_ comes in a whisper, afraid to offend.

“Tomorrow,” Tooru chants to himself under his breath again, covering his ears and shaking his head. _“_ Almost there. Almost.” Eyes go wide, past any reasonable point or poise, and uses it as an excuse for stinging. Sugawara continues to knock regardless, quietly insistent as a friend should be, but Tooru refuses to answer. 

_“Tooru.”_

“Now’s not a good time, Sugawara,” he tries to answer as casually as possible, almost in a singsong. “I've got so many things to finish, and deadlines to hit! Writing never stops!”

 _“But you're not writing.”_  

“Like _you'd_ know!” Tooru fakes a laugh, and it makes his throat hoarse. “Besides, don't you think I've had enough of the servants telling me about this? They don't know how thick-headed Hajime is, so he'll be fine! Just fine!”

 _Just fine._  

_Tomorrow. Almost there—_

Sugawara says nothing at first. A beat of silence hits, long and dragging, and a gust howls through the draft tunnel on the property. It's the one thing Tooru’s always hated about the house. It shakes the door in a way Sugawara never would, and tells Tooru to listen.

 _“Tooru.”_  

“Yeah?” Tooru asks, barely audible. “Oh, I’m so busy, you know, and I really don't have time to chat—”

 _“He asked for you in his sleep, you know.”_  

Tooru stops. For a moment, he thinks about hiding in the room until the end of time. For the _Iroha_ clutched in his hands, the muse that calls, he knows he can't.

And so, Tooru starts. He knows he must move, past a constant tremble. For good measure, and even if no one is listening up above, he repeats his prayers on his way out, to strengthen resolve.

To _Susanoo_ , he says, _“I will dive the deepest seas for him."_  

To _Tsukuyomi,_ he says, _“I will wake the sleeping world for him.”_

To _Amaterasu,_ he says, _“I will stare into the sun for him.”_

 

But all at once, like the seas drying up, the night falling eternal, or a sun exploding across the eastern sky, Sugawara tells him the news anyway.

  
  
  


“He said he wanted to spend his last days with you, Tooru. In Nara.”

  


**x**

  
  
  
  


_Hajime._

_Would you like to hear this poem I wrote for you, so very long ago?_  

_I think it's almost finished._

  
  
  


**x**

  
  
  
  


Wisteria petals fall in Nara like the day Tooru first met Hajime.

It is a still day in spring, three days after Tooru’s failed prayers and their departure from Heian-kyō, and the two of them are sitting under their favorite spot in Nara under a certain tree by a guest house. Tooru hums as he writes, while Hajime dozes off on the poet’s shoulder, and it has been mostly quiet save for the shuffle of other household feet and an emperor’s persistent coughs. To break it up, knowing full well that Hajime might not be listening, Tooru tells stories about the days they weren't together, content to fill in the last gaps. 

Tooru retraces his steps when he tries to remember his history. In the light of more recent events, he talks about the amazing things he's done in Osaka, like write haikus on rooftops and spy on _lazy aristocrats,_ and every time he's had to hunt down commissioners who didn't pay (and how he usually cut them down with _strongly written letters_ ). Every question or comment he gets out of Hajime, no matter how small or passing, is enough to keep him going, and at some point he feels like he's eighteen again and hearing the emperor shout out in the fields. Out of all his stories, Tooru doesn't dare tell him about that day—not explicitly at least—but recites a tale about a boy with the sky on his back instead.

“That one’s always popular with company,” Tooru muses, reaching out to collect petals in his hands. “They all swear it's a love story.” 

“Wouldn't that be something?” Hajime just laughs because he already _knows_ —they both do—and keeps himself nestled on Tooru’s shoulder. For all the times he's insisted he was fine or that he would be, he makes no such claims today. He only seeks rest, motions little. 

“You used to lean on me when we were small. You were really annoying about it, so I _couldn't_ say no,” Hajime recalls, and Tooru can't say that he _wasn’t_ difficult at times. “Do you remember? It was right after you tumbled down that _damned_ hill, and you came to live at my house for a while.”

Tooru nods. “I do. Even though you said it was okay to come to your estate, I remember your father didn’t like me very much anyway. He said I didn’t know how to keep still enough, and that I’d get into trouble for it, one day.”

“Well, he wasn’t wrong,” Hajime tells him, and Tooru laughs in turn. Tooru is the one to reach for his best friend’s hand this time, and keeps his grip tight but not to smother. Hajime holds back too, weaker than ever. 

“I worry about that sometimes,” confesses the emperor after a while in all seriousness, voice whispered like he's sleep talking. “That I’ve lead you down the wrong paths all this time.”

Tooru sighs. “You really are something, Hajime.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And what do you mean by that?” Hajime asks. 

“That you could ever think that.” Tooru cranes his neck up to greet the cracks of sunlight between billows, and tries to reach up like it might change anything. 

Instead, he collects a few petals in his hands, and thinks about how he never really got to write his first poem about the wisteria tree. He thinks of the years spent running and coming right back, of a world seen from ox carts and the backs of favorite horses. In memory, roads stretch on across the provinces, and give him entire cities to inspire. He remembers every passing muse, days spent writing and writing and _writing_ , and how even the longest distances never felt like anything, anymore.

“Tooru.”

But at the most, _always the most,_ Tooru thinks of Hajime, never at the end of those roads, but always on the way with him, wherever they choose to go.

“Yes, Hajime _?_ ”

And oh, how he wishes they could keep going. Tooru has never known anything other than _keep going_.

“I'm glad I got to meet you,” he tells Tooru, and the poet knows it's almost time. The grip on his hand loosens until it is barely held on, and Hajime’s breathing becomes as labored as a rush of sudden wind. When the breeze does pick up out of stillness, and the wisteria begin to weep from their branches, Tooru almost stumbles but doesn't flinch. _Keep going_ , he tells himself, even when he's sure all his roads are collapsing under him. 

“You never know,” Tooru tries to feign, voice breaking along the way regardless. “Maybe I’ll get to see you again.”

“It's not a matter of _maybe_ ,” Hajime tells him, so sure and so quiet Tooru wonders if he's imagining it. “I know we will.”

“You’ve decided, then?” Tooru chokes out. “That you'd rather find me again?” He takes a deep breath and guards against the possibility of last words. He's never had to go through _last words_ before. “You'd rather find me, even though the afterlife would look nice on you?” he dares to mutter next, so that he might stave off just that. _Just keep talking. Keep going._

“You’d keep looking for me, even if you might finally get to find an empress consort, or be free of my poetry?” Tooru keeps asking. 

“I’d rather find you again,” Hajime repeats, and every word he speaks sounds like an endless dream, far away like he's already found a next life to be born into. Like he knows this one must come to an end. “ _Again_ and _again_ and _again,_ ” he whispers into Tooru’s ear despite it all, like he had come to this conclusion this a long, long time ago.

Like Hajime had decided. 

 _Because_ Hajime had decided.

“I will come to find you again.”

Tooru could never be ready for last words; but all at once, because promises have been made and the gods have been made speechless, their world grows still and every wind dies down in the city of Nara. A limp hand drops from Tooru’s palm, all of its familiar warmth gone, and for once, the poet does not know how to move.

  
  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


_Although its scent still lingers on_

_the form of a flower has scattered away_

 

_For whom will the glory_

_of this world remain unchanged?_

 

_Arriving today at the yonder side_

_of the deep mountains of evanescent existence_

 

_We shall never allow ourselves to drift away_

_intoxicated, in the world of shallow dreams_.

  
  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  
  


“I don't want to hear the rest.” 

Hinata’s eyes brim with tears, sympathetic and trying not to fall in the first place. He sniffs, shaking his head when they do, anyway. “You didn't tell me they _loved_ each other! No. _No more!_ I don't want to hear the rest!”

In the mightiest sympathy, Tooru just offers Hinata a tissue box and another satsuma to eat from a plate, peeling one open for himself to eat, too. Telling the _Heian_ story always leaves him with a dull pang in his stomach, and he attributes it to its mighty length. He offers a smile, letting it falter when he remembers that _Tobio-chan_ is in the room, too.

“But _I_ do,” Kageyama insists, unfazed and still scribbling in his notebook. “I want to know what happens to the poet.”

“Well, I refuse to continue if you treat my exhibit like a _garbage dump_ ,” Oikawa scolds. Thanks to Kageyama and his voracious note-taking, the _Heian_ room is a mess of crumpled up paper balls, half-dried highlighters, and discarded candy wrappers no one _thinks_ to pick up; at this, Oikawa _really_ begins to wonder who’s the one finding these volunteers, and thinks about filing a written complaint.

Kageyama is intent on continuing anyway, busy scanning through photocopies of the poet’s letters and works. Oikawa must admit it’s a valiant effort ( _especially_ for a morning so hellbent on rain and its subsequent call for lethargy), but he yawns out anyway, wonders _why_ Tobio-chan’s even come back if he hates this place so much, and prays to the three gods for additional patience.

“This matches up with the history,” Kageyama finally concedes, after some time writing. “Emperor Horikawa fell ill in his early twenties, just like you said, without a wife, or an heir, and with a legacy made only by _local infamy_.” He reaches over to a full knapsack in the corner, hands quick in digging out the right textbook to flip through. “But nothing about this poet. _Absolutely nothing._ ”

Oikawa rolls his eyes, thinking the gods have let him down once again. “Like I said, it's a matter of _belief_ , Tobio-chan—”

“No,” interrupts Kageyama, “I...I _know_. And I'm not sure I _do_ yet, to be honest, but I feel like I have to find out, anyway.” At his assertions, he sets down his textbook, page open to a picture of a cracked rice bowl and an empty vial from the National’s _imperial kitchen collection_. Oikawa trembles at the sight of it, but keeps his gaze strong on the photograph, not willing to back down. The caption beneath it reads, _**from an unnamed noble’s house in Kyoto (Heian-kyō), 1080s**_ , and Tooru stirs at the sight. 

When he peeks back up, snapping out of it, he finds Kageyama even more somber than before, now with two letters to _Sugawara-dono_ in his possession. 

“Did Emperor Horikawa die naturally, Oikawa-san?” Kageyama asks quietly, out of the blue.

Hinata darts a glance over at him, furrowed in a slight frown. “He was sick, wasn't he? That what it sounded like to me.”

“Yeah, but he had never been sick a day in his _life_ ,” Kageyama reminds him. “How do you explain that?" 

“People catch things all the time, Kageyama-kun! No need to be so _paranoid_ —”

“I am _not_ being paranoid—”

“Oh _shut up_ , both of you!” Oikawa shouts, and they do. He shakes his head with a sigh, attempting to collect himself. “Evidence about that has always been inconclusive. There _was_ a bad strain of hay fever going around in the emperor’s last years, after all, and he was always out in the villages, so there's no reason to think he didn't catch it from there…” 

“But do you really believe that, Oikawa-san?” Kageyama picks up where Oikawa trails off, always a challenger. “Wouldn't you have just said so, if you really _believed_ that's what it was?” There's a sure way Kageyama says the word, _believe,_ and Oikawa is both smug and begrudging that he could use it against him this way. _Smartass._

Still, Oikawa relents like the good senpai he is, taking a few of the letters to Sugawara-dono from Kageyama and finding the usual places he’s looked before.

“There have been alternate theories,” Oikawa starts, tracing a finger along written lines. “They hold no historical basis, of course, but they're nice to dream about when you're done with researching for the day. You've got your _secret getaways,_ where the emperor runs away from Heian-kyō altogether. You know, to live out the rest of his days in peace _._ ” Oikawa likes that one a lot, especially when he pictures the poet going with him. “Or, the rumors that he had been sick all along and didn't want the public to know,” something that he doesn't quite believe. “But a theory that I’ve come across over the years was that, well…” he trails off, all for the most dramatic effect.

“ _Well?_ ” Hinata asks.

“That he was murdered,” Kageyama finishes for Oikawa, and the room goes quiet. Oikawa scoffs out the smallest hum in response, _god forbid the two of them actually be on the same page, for once._

“By who?” Oikawa tests further.

“The poet,” Kageyama answers.

Oikawa fakes a laugh. “This is no time to joke now, Tobio-chan.”

“I'm not joking.”

“But _the poet_ would never, Kageyama-kun,” Hinata refutes, too. “He and the emperor were close! More than close!”

Kageyama shakes his head. “Who better than _him_ to do it, then? Look, the emperor spent a lot of time in that estate.” He points to the page in his textbook again, at the picture of the cracked bowl and the empty vial. “It could've been a matter of _poison_ or—”

“Chibi-chan’s right,” Oikawa tells him gravely, his lightest spirits lifted away. “He would never.”

“Then how would you explain the emperor blotting his name out of history, then?” Kageyama argues further. “Didn't you say he did it out of _punishment?_ I know _you_ were the one to discover him, Oikawa-san, and hearing this must be hard for you, but he _must've—_ ”

“He would never!” Oikawa shouts, pounding the ground and making the ceiling tremble with dust. “Who even asked you?”

“Why are you so intent on defending him?” Kageyama asks.

At once, Oikawa backs down. He exhales, shaking off any leftover jitters, and unfurls the fists he's made over his knees.

“Because,” he resumes, “I don't believe that it was the poet. He was a devoted friend, advisor, and... _well_ , you know. Surely, it was someone else, and I thought you'd see it right away, Kageyama-kun,” taunts Oikawa further, when he slides over the photocopies of Sugawara’s letters once more. 

“He was poisoned, wasn't he?” Kageyama answers him without a beat. “That's your theory, too, isn't it?”

“Glad we can agree on that.” Oikawa takes the letters back, hands them over for Hinata to read too, and takes a breather in another beat of silence.

“Then who could've done it?” Kageyama asks. “If you don't believe it was the poet, then _who—_ ” 

“Guess.”

“You can't keep asking me to do that—” 

“Just try.”

Kageyama doesn't, but Hinata looks up from the letters and turns to Oikawa. “The cloistered emperor,” he answers for his friend, and Kageyama’s eyes go wide at such an implication.

 

 ** _Theory: an emperor kills another emperor with a slow dose of poison._** Oikawa imagines the headlines about it now, thanks to years of following Matsukawa around on rounds of _student paper_ editing: 

_Top Nara Historian Spouts Nonsense and Threatens Museum’s Credibility_

_Oikawa Tooru Versus the Imperial Court. Revisionist History, or National Treason?_

 

He shudders at the thought of bad press, hopes the sentiment will reach his two pupils, and says nothing further about it.

“You can't just go around accusing _an emperor_ like that,” Kageyama says. 

“Oh, but who said doing the same to a poor and innocent poet is any better?” Oikawa asks. At this, Kageyama attempts to argue back, but he can’t get a word in when Oikawa gets up from his spot on the floor altogether.

“You know what?” he continues, indignant. “It's been another long day here, and I think we should resume tomorrow! Please take as many satsumas as you want out the door, but I’m too tired—” 

“ _But Oikawa-san!_ ”

“Bye! Have a safe trip home! Hope you catch your bus!” Oikawa is kind enough to tell him, and Kageyama just stutters and starts packing his things. He storms out without another word, and Oikawa wonders if this means he'll be in need of new volunteers; but Hinata still remains, perhaps even more resilient than his better half _,_ and Oikawa can only wonder how he's ended up with the world’s most persistent assistants. 

“What? Did you want to argue with me, too, chibi-chan?” Oikawa asks, and Hinata shakes his head.

“No, because I believe you,” Hinata says, when the rain starts to pick up harder against the house. “I just wanted to let you know that Kageyama-kun will too, eventually.”

“Oh? And how do you know that?”

“Because the poet and the emperor were partners, right?” Hinata asks right back. “You have to trust your partner, right? I think it takes time for him to understand that sometimes.”

“You seem like you know a lot about this,” observes Oikawa, and Hinata shrugs.

“Well—” he starts, before checking his watch. “ _Oh_ , wait, look at the time!” Hinata actually raises his arm to show off the clock face. “We really might miss the bus! We’ll see you tomorrow, Oikawa-san! Can't wait to hear about the next room!”

“Oh, _joy_ ,” Oikawa says, half-joking.

In a whirlwind, Hinata Shouyou collects his things from the floor, backpack and all, and and almost slips out the door in his socks. He shuffles on his shoes, still untied, and takes a few milk flavored candies from the bowl on his way out. Oikawa sees him off, if only to lock up against any other visitors, and watches Hinata run off in the rain.

Down the path, trees lining the way, Kageyama slows when Hinata calls after him. Oikawa watches them bicker under a jumbo-sized umbrella, and he surmises that they're probably yelling about whether to stay at _‘Almost’_ or consider other placements. He even almost thinks to say goodbye and good riddance to them both from the way they're going at it, but knows to relent when he sees; he watches the way Hinata presses a few candies into Kageyama’s hand, still in the midst of their argument, and keeps going despite it. They never stop. Hands even stay linked after Hinata’s exchange, and Oikawa figures that he's seen enough for the day.

When Hinata and Kageyama walk on, red umbrella bobbing along the path, Oikawa closes the door shut for good and meanders back into the _Heian_ room. He sets himself down on the floor and leans over bent legs to stretch, wondering why he's been so fatigued lately, and lies back to take a small but much-deserved nap. He shuts his eyes. 

In weightlessness, Oikawa dreams of him again.

The _emperor_ , _Hajime,_ has got his back to Oikawa like all the other times, but possesses none of the lifelessness of a mind-made caricature. Certainly not a dream. They're riding together on horseback, and Oikawa feels younger than ever _, livelier_ than ever, and lets himself breathe. 

And at once, because nerve is nothing in a dream, Oikawa wraps his arms around Hajime’s waist and lets himself lean. “Hajime?” he asks like he might know him, even though the emperor never, ever responds. 

“Yes?”

 _Oh, just so_. Oikawa feels himself smile against all reasonable doubt, like this is the most natural thing in the world, and thinks of what to ask. He's never gotten this far before.

“What did he mean? For all those times he wrote about the _sky on your back_?” 

“Shouldn't you know the answer to that?” Hajime asks right back. 

Oikawa hums out, fully noncommittal. “ _Hm_ , I don't think so. Is it that obvious?”

“Maybe not,” Hajime gruffs out. “But it's not hard to figure out.”

“Oh?” 

“I have the  _utmost_ faith in you.”

“Aw, no need to be patronizing, now,” Oikawa whines.

“Who said I was being patronizing?” 

“Hajime—” 

“We’re almost there, I think.”

“What?” 

After that, all goes dark and nothing more is said. Oikawa loses his grip on Hajime and gets thrown back, never to land, but always to fall. He shuts his eyes for the impact until he wakes up on the ground of the guesthouse, heaving against visions that always feel too real.

Oikawa palms the sweat off his forehead, swallows down hard, and slowly sits up, cotton-mouthed and achy. He still hears the _pitter patter_ of rain outside when he cranes his neck to stretch. _Get up,_ he tells himself, while adjusting the socks that have slipped past his ankles. _Keep going_ , he breathes, when he springs back up into life. He spends the rest of the afternoon and evening cleaning the house, deciding on the next room to talk about next. The _American_ might serve well. _San Francisco_ it is, he thinks, when he leaves that door ajar for whoever will come in next.

Back in the Heian room, Oikawa stares back up at the two sokutai robes hanging on the wall. For the spring, and a change of pace, he decides to switch them out for more vibrant colors; he remembers the box of costumes living in a box somewhere in one of the cupboards under the stands, and goes to look for a new set of robes to dress the room with. Sifting through a bunch of them, all folded neatly for times like this, Oikawa flips through them with little attention until he reaches one of them at the very bottom. 

Oikawa isn't sure why he hasn't seen this one before. He notes the gentle cerulean color, faded blue but still willing to gleam, and chooses it out of all the others. It doesn't take long for him to unfurl it either (the poor thing should never be confined in such a way) and lets the thinned silk spill over his fingers. When he raises it up, he notes that its smell wafts like a sweet morning tea.

 _Chrysanthemum._  

Oikawa calls the main office about this. They tell him they haven't touched anything since Oikawa’s taken over the guesthouse, and that every robe they've sent him are imitations of imperial wear (and not to think otherwise). “ _Maybe you've just never noticed it,”_ teases Suga, one of the assistants, “ _having your head in those letters all this time.”_

Maybe so. Oikawa just hangs up the phone, goes back to admiring its unwavering blue, and decides it is a sky. 

_The sky on your back._

Oikawa’s eyes go wide when he realizes what the poet meant. He thinks back to the dream, seeing Hajime in it, and the robes in between them. _The sky on his back._

Tooru lifts one of the sleeves up, notes the darkened edges from mud and wear. A folded letter falls out through the slip, done waiting to be delivered.

  


 

 

* * *

 

  


 

_Tooru._

_I am addressing my last letter to you. It has always been meant for you, I suppose, especially since when you've spent all your waking days trying to get me to write to you more. I have never been one for a quill and ink, and you always complain about my handwriting, so I hope you will accept this._

_The truth is, I still don't like poetry. I've never found much interest in it. But I will never tire of the way you write it, or seek to find your next great piece. Because as much as robes weigh us down, the way you run to get your parchments makes you look weightless._

_I hope you never lose the feeling of such movement._  

_I hope that you write._

_And I hope that you write something that they will remember you for._

 

_Something that I might remember you by, in my next life._

  



	3. lifelines

  
  
  


_Tooru._

_I remembered you today, when I was on the beach._

_I hope that one day, you will remember me, too._  


_Iwaizumi_

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

  
  


Through a cloud of a fresh cigarette haze and a new tune called jazz, the first person Tooru sees in San Francisco is the son of a fortune teller, book to the nose and terribly uninterested. It is a peculiar sight, Tooru thinks, to see smoke come out from the behind the pages in such a way; it is almost as if the spine has become a house’s chimney, and he wonders, tentatively, if he's struck gold at a new home. At the possibility and past the all reasonable doubt to call this a fire hazard, Tooru bucks up and prepares his greetings. “Hi, my name is—” 

“The place isn't big,” the other tenant gets to the point, as if that isn't obvious to see by the single room, narrow windows, and the thin fold-up cots on opposite walls. Succulents line the sill. The wallpaper is a clean pale blue, peeling at the ceiling. “But it's less upkeep than some of these other quarters here, if you're into that sort of thing.”  

“Excuse me?” Tooru asks, caught unaware.

“You're here to look at the apartment right?”

“Yes?”

“Well, this is it.”

It is the foggy morning of March tenth, 1921, when a fortune teller’s son introduces himself as Kunimi Akira, all introductions made like he's making the world’s greatest effort. A huffy sigh follows, and he tells Tooru that’s all he has to offer today, and not to expect much else. At the promise of new things, Tooru just lifts himself on his toes, breathes in the smell of old wood and books and all the little oddities in this townhouse-made-tenement, and decides rather quickly what to make of the place.

“Perfect,” Tooru convinces himself, staving off the _bother of the unkempt_ , and Kunimi just shrugs right back. He drags his things in from the hallway, single upholstered suitcase following behind him. He figures he won't be in the apartment a lot anyway, with so much of San Francisco to explore, and he figures it'd be nice to keep some company in some way or form.

“Oh, by the way,” Tooru starts, spinning around. “My name’s—”

“Tooru,” Kunimi finishes, setting down to fiddle with his phonograph by the window sill. “And _Tooru_ specifically. Nothing else. I know.”

“How—?”

Kunimi taps at his head, single finger grazing a short side fringe, one that's grown too long, just past his ears. _Psychic,_ he mouths without a sound, letting the sharpness of trumpets sound triumphantly in the background. Tooru does not know the song. The phonograph skips.

“Ah.” Tooru just settles down on the cot opposite him, sets his suitcase down, and watches Kunimi settle back into his stories. It's a book in English, he notices, with eyes growing wide. “You know enough to read?” he asks, and Kunimi lowers his book again; Tooru knows he shouldn't be surprised if he really could, because this area had long been gentrified, streets mixed in both suits and more traditional fare. Certainly _americanized_ but fiercely Japanese, as they've all told him. What a lovely paradox.

“I struggle with a few words here and there,” answers Kunimi, “but it gets less difficult if you do it enough. I don't care what anyone says...finding yourself a comfortable spot to read is way better than sitting at a desk every Saturday.”

“Well, what are you reading?” Tooru asks, not really a proponent for school _or_ hiding spaces.

Kunimi hums out, peering at the cover. “It's Herbert Giles’s translation of the Chinese work, _Zhuangzi.”_

_“Zhuangzi?_ Wouldn't it be easier to read the original, then? You could probably make out bits and pieces, with kanji and all?" 

_“Hm,_ I guess so,” Kunimi says. “But it won't do me any good in the long run.”

“Why?”

Kunimi picks his book back up and flips through the pages he's already read. Tooru notices he's about halfway through.

“Well,” Kunimi starts, “I'm supposed to translate a great work one day, and I figure I’d see what others have done so far. It's a pain to learn all this English, but I suppose reading all day isn't the worse job I could ask for.”

“You have a job _paying_ you to do that?” Tooru asks, a little more incredulous than he'd like to show. He's still been looking for a job himself, one that'll help pay rent and a little extra each month, but with three days of searching (and sleeping on the beach at night), he's found no such luck.

“My mother pays the rent as long as I promise to keep reading.” Kunimi flips through another page, eyes pacing left, right, left, right. “It's not a bad deal, honestly, so I might as well. She says she’ll pay yours too, if you help me in my search.”

“ _What_?” Tooru isn't sure he's heard right.

“You heard me.” 

At once, Tooru thinks of the advert he saw in the _Nichibei Shimbun_ classifieds just yesterday. _Needed: a roommate for my boisterous only son, the heir to a grand fortune teller’s business. Shared room, heat and gas not included. Must not mind reading._ Tooru doesn't recall ever seeing anything else, and he just as he's about to tell Kunimi, _“well, I barely know any English to string two sentences together,”_ the latter shuts his book closed shut and final.

Kunimi just shifts over to his nightstand, places _Zhuangzi_ back on the shelf under it with all his other books, and stops the record on his phonograph. A clean sort of quiet emerges in the room, not too stifling but just bit a empty, and Tooru places a hand over his stomach when he feels it. 

_Something’s coming,_ he thinks, for better for worse, and he knows he must catch it. 

Kunimi pulls out a bundle of letters from the drawer, neatly bundled by the hug of twine. He hands it over to Tooru, who just keeps them in his lap, and waits for further instruction.

“There are about a hundred letters in that stack,” Kunimi says. “All written by the previous tenant, and left behind when he left the city ten years ago. I moved in the next day with my mother from Yokohama.”

Tooru makes out the messy handwriting left under the string, finding that the sender didn't bother to put any addresses down. Instead, and with closer inspection, he reads his own name, _Tooru_ , scrawled out in precise characters.

“These are for me,” he dares to presume.

Kunimi nods. “It would seem so.”

“And what does this have to do with rent?” Tooru asks.

“Well,” Kunimi begins to explain, pinching the phonograph dial between his fingers. He does not place the needle at the beginning again, but lets the song resume somewhere in the middle. “What we need you to do is read these letters, and let them take you where you need to go. That great work I’m supposed to translate _must_ be at the end of it, my mother thinks,” he says with faux enthusiasm, “and you should be the one to lead us to it.”

Tooru shakes his head. “You must be mistaken. I can't be the only Tooru in this city.”

“Believe me,” Kunimi sighs out. “You’re the only one that matters.” He peers down at the letters in Tooru’s care, and how the twine has untied itself from its knot at the top. “In ten years, no one else has been able to undo the string,” he explains, even though Tooru hasn't dared to try. Still, he looks down at the first envelope, holds it up with fingers skirting the seal, and examines the name once more. Tooru.

_Tooru,_ like he should understand it. 

_Tooru_ , a voice says from a million miles away.

_Tooru_ , a call so quiet, it sounds like someone’s last.

Tooru rips open the seal on the first letter, finds a name he cannot recognize, and breathes him in easy, anyway.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

When Oikawa takes the hand into the cup of his own, running pressed thumbs along the softest part of the open palm, he decides it is not the one he’s looking for.

“I’m afraid the end is near for you, Yahaba-chan.”

“ _What_?”

“Just kidding,” Oikawa whispers back at his unwilling patron, and he nearly gets a faceful of _Suntory_ Malt’s in the process. (Yahaba spits out to the side instead, _poor thing_ , because he could never spit in the face of a senpai.) It is eleven on a Saturday night, boozy and _just_ past the borderline of a clear state of mind, when Oikawa gets told to lighten up on what he often calls an inane little party trick (because Matsukawa _swore_ he'd only attract ghosts that way).

“Come back here.” Usually pegged as a rather disagreeable drunk, Oikawa beckons at Yahaba Shigeru’s request at another palm reading, _but in all seriousness this time._ He takes the palm again, traces the strong and single third line leading to the wrist, and hums out a single note.

“Well, Oikawa-senpai?” Yahaba asks impatiently.

“Legends say that having a line like this is good luck,” Oikawa offers, low and drowsy. “And that destiny is surely on your side. Why don’t you go play the lottery?” he drones on, tired of seeing such perfectly made marks. He glances at his own, buried under the heart of Yahaba’s hands, and how his life lines never seem to make anything worth noting. Bold but not connected, he quickly thinks of the ridiculous notion of _destiny,_ how he’s certainly made his fortunes despite it saying, ‘ _well, nothing’s going to fall into place for you,’_ and remembers not to fret. 

(But maybe that’s the thing about being drunk, or tipsy, or just slightly _out of mind._ It gives people an excuse to fret, so maybe Oikawa might let himself do just that this time.)

Oikawa pinches Yahaba’s skin with the prick of his fingers. The line stays in tact, and bitterness, an endless well.

Yahaba slowly rescinds his hand, realizing that maybe he’s hit a sore spot, and asks no further about palm reading. Matsukawa comes over with two glasses of Suntory for the both of them, but only sets down one for Yahaba to drink. “What’s going on here?” he asks, staring at Oikawa’s open palms. “Fortune telling again? That’s always fun—’cause you don’t know this, Yahaba-kun, but when we were both in college, he’d pull this out at _every_ party. Scared a lot of innocent people in the anthropology department back in the day.” 

Oikawa scoffs. “Well, they deserved it,” he insists, swiping Yahaba’s beer from right under him. “That’ll show them to steal our research budget.” 

“They needed to fund their archeological dig to _Nairobi_ , Oikawa. Were you planning on going to _Nairobi_?” 

“Whatever,” he sighs, preparing himself for a deep chug. “I ended up just fine, and so did they. No one was harmed and everyone went home happy.”

“No need to be grumpy, now. I’m sure your volunteers will come back at some point. _Because you're irresistible_ ,” Matsukawa insists, setting himself down next to Oikawa and matting at his hair. The latter just slumps against Matsukawa’s shoulder in lightheadedness, too tipsy to care about the proximity.

Yahaba, the junior curator working for the _National,_ takes away Oikawa’s beer and has no problem taking a sip of it. “Oh, I heard about that. One of your volunteers just up and left, didn’t he? Was it that _Tezukayama_ student? Kageyama, or something? I heard he’s doing great work in his department over there, even if he is a little...hard to get along with.” 

Matsukawa laughs. “Way to put it lightly, Yahaba-kun.” 

“I figure Oikawa-senpai has lived endured enough of this already. I won't rub salt in his wounds,” Yahaba states, with utmost grace, “and no need to make him relive any of it. _Ah!_ Well, anyway,” he says, checking a buzzing phone, “I’m going to go out find Kyoutani. I just hope he hasn’t gotten into any fights with the deer in Nara.” 

“Come back soon,” Matsukawa says. “Cabbage rolls will be ready before you know it.”

“You said that _two_ hours ago!” Yahaba yells out, already on his way to the door. In turn, Matsukawa shakes his head and Oikawa stares ahead in blankness. Amongst the chatter of the room (with Hanamaki shouting about _getting more beer_ and the others gathered under a kotatsu that _really_ should’ve been put away by now), Matsukawa nudges him, waits for Oikawa to say his peace, and lets him stew in his words. 

“I’m not sulking,” Oikawa insists, knowing no one’s asked.

“No one asked,” Matsukawa goes along with it. “But there’s no need to be snippy with Makki-chan’s guests. He’s worked hard to prepare for this party, and he’s a bit miffed that one of his friends won’t be arriving.”

“Yeah, _all in my apartment,_ ” Oikawa hisses, even though he barely comes back to it at all. “Anyone would be annoyed.”

“Still.” Matsukawa takes a sip from the beer still in his hand. “Something’s up.” 

Oikawa lets the quiet linger between them for a moment before getting up. He almost wavers, falling right on top of Matsukawa, but he keeps on going, past the people chatting under their kotatsu. He skirts his fingertips along the books on wall-lined shelves, treads carefully on his way to the balcony. When Oikawa gets there, more dizzy than he’d like to admit, Matsukawa pulls him back from leaning over too far.

“Say something.”

“What?” Matsukawa asks.

“I don't know. Anything. My ears are ringing.” 

Oikawa remains against the railing anyway, letting the breeze overtake them both, and stares ahead at the city of Nara. Older fish-scale roofs cover the modernity above that houses the two of them, and yellow light from warm homes litters their view all the way to the horizon.

“Okay. I have a fun fact for you.”

“Go on,” Oikawa insists. “What's your fun fact?”

Matsukawa hums, pulling out a fresh cigarette and lighting it between his fingers. Oikawa begins to drum his fingers against the railing, to prod him along.

“That today would’ve been the day,” Matsukawa muses with no trace of frostiness, or remorse. Just a fact. 

“The day for what?” Oikawa asks, pretending he hasn't the faintest clue.

“Oh, you know.” 

A beat of silence stretches into the time it takes Oikawa to calculate a smile, insincere but cheeky. 

“Makki-chan would be upset if you were still talking about ex-anniversaries,” Oikawa says, more in teasing than anything.

Matsukawa takes a drag from his cigarette, easy in his exhale, easy like they’ve always been. “We talked about that today, actually, and he didn't seem too bothered, to be honest. He joked that this party was a partially _a victory rally_. _‘Because you picked me over the great golden boy Oikawa Tooru_!’”

Oikawa pretends to be offended, maybe even a little hurt (he isn't). He watches the cigarette smoke spread out thin into the air, the same as it's always been (whether they were dating or not), and feels the ease of their friendship breeze through. 

Four years since their breakup, he knows _Matsukawa Issei_ could only be classified, dating wise, into the following categories: _fleeting, wading,_ and _nice while it lasted._ Even in their heyday, their unavoidable honeymoon phase, Matsukawa had always joked that Oikawa was married to his work instead. _Marry that Emperor Horikawa if you love him so much,_ he used to joke often, when they spent wee hours in the library, just knocking books off shelves and reading random lines from the fiction section.

_Oh, what was his name again?_

_Hajime?_

Oikawa used to laugh about it. The Matsukawa Issei of now doesn't joke about it anymore. Oikawa doesn't blame him though, because it had been their downfall in the first place, and such memories always leave a comfortable sort of scarring, never to burn or reopen but still there to remind you. The thin film of smoothed but numbed skin. But they had been friends first, and friends to be again, so it didn't take them long to fall back into a sort of groove—sitting on balconies, one of them smoking at near-midnight—without the expectation of anything more.

“Work’s been bothering you, then?” Matsukawa asks, somber but not necessarily in mourning. Oikawa tells him yes.

“I haven't been able to get it out of my mind,” Oikawa confesses, to no one in particular. It just feels freeing, to be able to say it, and to give into it, just this once.

“Hm?” Matsukawa asks. “What? Some new paper you've been reading?”

Shaking his head, Oikawa tries breathing in deep to relieve the start of a headache. It comes to no avail, and he feels his head spin despite his best efforts. 

“I found a letter the other day,” Oikawa tells Matsukawa. “It was by the emperor, and he said it was his last. It was probably written in the same spring he died, I’m guessing.”

“You said the Emperor barely wrote any letters back to the poet,” Matsukawa interjects. 

“That's what I thought,” Oikawa says. “But what if he did just that once? And the house was keeping it safe for me?” 

“And of course you'd know his _handwriting_ ,” Matsukawa taunts, needing none of his investigative prowess to state the obvious. He taps out his cigarette, waits for Oikawa to explain, and twiddles a new one between fingertips without lighting it.

“Oh, we both know that's the boring part. You know, from scanning the things official things Emperor Horikawa was forced to write...ceremonial things, pardons, apologies,” Oikawa muses. “The list goes on. He just hated every second of it!”

“Is that so?” Matsukawa laughs. Inflections come in something unconvinced, if not unimpressed.

“Believe me, I can spot his handwriting anywhere because of it, even if it is messy as hell. What a _uncivilized_ emperor!”

A quiet emerges once more after that, but Oikawa doesn't feel unsettled by it. It is familiar, if not a little lonely, but Oikawa was used to being alone by now. 

“Well, _we both know_ it's more than a matter of looking at _official pardons_ a million times,” says Matsukawa. “It hasn't been about that for a long, long time.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tooru insists, and he avoids eye contact altogether. 

Another drag, another sigh. “Want to play the game again?" 

“What?” Oikawa asks. 

“Make me say something. _Anything_.” 

“Why?”

“Because I have a story for you,” Matsukawa starts after a while. “I mean, it’s not a very interesting one, so it's not one I could ever tell at a party or anything, _and_ I could probably just get straight to the point, but I figure it'd be nice if you could hear it.” 

“ _All right_ already,” Oikawa says peevishly. “Go on.”

“I used to hate Makki’s handwriting,” Matsukawa says. “I couldn’t read a word of it, and that's frustrating when you're trying to sort out your grocery lists and whatnot. Simply the worst, and it didn't even _look_ like anything,” he whines, like that might be the world’s worst predicament. “So for a while, I’d volunteer to write them out for him.”

Oikawa scowls. “How domestic of you.” _Gross._  

“Well, one week I got really sick. You know, the _black plague_ _of 2013_. I could've sworn I was dying,” Matsukawa insists, and Oikawa remembers. “So, I wasn't in any condition to do any grocery shopping, you know. Plus, I was all alone in Osaka on business at the time, while _you_ were busy doing work in Nara.”

“Wasn't Makki-Chan in Tokyo at the time?” Oikawa asks.

“Yeah.” 

“So, what's the point of this story?”

“I’m getting to it, _antsy_ kawa,” Matsukawa counters, clearing his throat. “ _So_ , as I was saying, I was in the midst of my demise, all alone in a city with only a suitcase to my name—”

Oikawa rolls his eyes, already half-checked out and used to Matsukawa’s dramatic retellings (as evidenced by the most _riveting_ ad ops he writes for Sunday morning editions).

“—and Hanamaki Takahiro, second year med student with no time to _ever_ spare, shows up at my hotel room with a grocery list in his hands.” Matsukawa reenacts the knocking, following it up with a reluctant grin. “He has the nerve to say, _hey, you're not missing grocery day_ , _or the Saturday sales,_ and drags me out to the supermarket.” 

Oikawa relents a vaguely held smile. “Even when you were on the verge of death?” He admits he's never heard this one before. With all the stories he's always repeating, he forgets that his own friends have their own to tell, too, and he wonders why he doesn't listen more often. He laughs, small but well-meant, and feels something prickle at him when he realizes he's _faking it_ , partly. Matsukawa doesn't notice this time, but Oikawa does, _always does_ when he realizes just how out of the loop he’s been.

“Well, we all know how much Makki-chan likes to see me suffer,” Matsukawa jokes. “And to be honest, he only stayed about a couple of hours. We spent our time together, and then he left for Tokyo. Left me with nothing but _the grocery list_ , _to bring with me to my next life,_ ” he practically coos. “Who even does that?” 

“ _Makki-chan,_ apparently _,”_ Oikawa says.

“Yeah, but you know what?”

“You didn't die?” inquires Oikawa, feigning an attempt at _surprise._ “Did the power of the grocery list will you back to the realm of the living?”

_“Precisely._ ” Matsukawa digs out his wallet, takes out a tattered piece of folded notebook paper, and admires it endlessly. “But it was also the day I realized that I liked his handwriting. _His_ , of all things!” He coughs out. “You spend so much time with a person that you don't even know what it does to you. Dealbreakers turn into pet peeves turn into _fondness_. You start to like chicken scratch!" 

Oikawa scrunches his face into something sour, backs off the ledge, and makes his way to the door back inside. “I don't get it,” he says, and Matsukawa just hums out, half lidded gaze a flicker of sharpness.

“Well.”

“Well, _what_?” Oikawa asks. 

“I can spot Makki’s handwriting anywhere, too, just so you know,” Matsukawa just says, because he just _always_ has to be _so_ clever. Oikawa leans against the doorway for a moment, relenting before collecting himself, and relives those library days. ‘ _Why don't you just marry the emperor if you like him so much?_ ’ the Matsukawa of _then_ asks in memory, and the Oikawa of _now_ will not have any of it. In retaliation, he just clicks his tongue, feels his face heat up, and leaves Matsukawa alone on the balcony to smoke.

He doesn't dare tell him about the contents of a certain letter, and or how it had fallen out of an old silk sky with a name to deliver. 

_Tooru_ , it had said, amongst other important things, but Oikawa doesn't dare to repeat it.

To speak it, he thinks, would fuel the sort of thoughts he'd never be able to take back.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

_Tooru._

_Today, I thought of that name like it might mean something. I had this weird warm feeling in my chest, like I had to address this letter by this name and nothing else, and figured to keep it like this. You see, I've never had much will to write letters, but this one might be the exception. I have some time to kill, anyway. San Francisco has been boring, even if I do get to sit on the beach when I want. I'm not really a fan of just sitting, though._  

_My name is Iwaizumi, and I'm originally from Nara. I’m a fisherman by trade, with a speciality in hunting big tuna, but they've got me cleaning boats on SF’s wharfs. I don't really like it, but I guess it pays the rent, and it'll keep my hands going until I find what I’m looking for. At least they've got me making nets today. That's okay._  

_This is going on too long already, but I will tell you now that I’m not a spiritual person. A fortune teller down the street had the nerve to tell me I was an emperor in my past life, and I could not help but almost laugh! Can you imagine that? Because I can't. Anyway, she also read my palms and told me about my life line. Said it was broken up, and that'd I always have to work hard for things to go my way. I guess that's what I'm doing now. I'll make sure it pays off._

_Well, anyway, I’m tired of writing for now. I'll just leave you with this question._

_Are you looking for something too, Tooru? I have a feeling, a strange one, that you might._  


_Iwaizumi_

  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  


 

 

 

Tooru pulls a frayed blanket over him for the chill of an early morning on the coast, puts down Hajime’s first letter after his millionth reading, and stares ahead.

A low tide flirts at his bare toes, still too cold to wade, and Tooru tells himself he is content to hang back on the sand, anyway. It is then when he decides he doesn't like the beach all that much, which might be a letdown for Hajime if he ever gets to meet him. Nonetheless, Tooru still remains, huddled to himself against the cold, and lets himself imagine the two of them sitting in the sand.

_(Are you looking for something too, Tooru?)_

_“_ No.”

When a few tugboats call to the seas ahead, and the gulls break bread on the buoys, Tooru closes his eyes and imagines him. _Iwaizumi._ It a silly thought, he knows, because _Iwaizumi_ could look like anyone in this world, but it doesn't stop him from forming the vision for himself. He must be a certain way. In his mind, _Iwaizumi’s_ got dark and bristly hair, with sharp and blazing eyes to match. He’s shorter than Tooru’s one hundred and eighty-four centimeters, but not by much, and wears the same shoe size as him. His back is broad, Tooru thinks, and his hands are not suited to write letters. He’d be the type to kick his shoes off in the sand, and be the first to break the fear of cold water. 

Most importantly, _Iwaizumi’s_ always got the backdrop of a blue sky behind him, _in front of him,_ just a few more steps ahead than anyone gives him credit for. Not beautiful, but bold, and he ultimately wonders if those words can be interchanged. This is the kind of _Iwaizumi_ that Tooru imagines. _Sees_ , maybe, wading in the water ahead. He's got his hands in his pockets. He's got his head held up high.

At once, Tooru chalks his visions up to drowsiness. A dream runs wild in the form of a boy. 

When Tooru blinks back to reality, _Iwaizumi_ is gone from the coastline, and all he has left are his letters.

_(Are you looking for something too, Tooru?)_

_“No,”_ he repeats. Still, Tooru wonders if it is the one he will meet, before telling himself he is getting carried away. He has always held a wild imagination. 

Iwaizumi looks back again, blinks, and leaves Tooru with a smile. Thin air has never been so taunting.

_(Are you looking for something too, Tooru?)_  

Tooru looks out to the ocean, at the distance between nations, one he swears he's left behind for good, and shakes his head, resolute.

“No,” Tooru tells himself again, a wry smile forming for no one. “And I’m certainly not looking for you.”

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


 

 

_Tooru._  

_I dreamt of you last night. This might sound weird, because you might not even exist, but I was sure it was you. You were annoying and being vague about something, and I could’ve sworn I heard your voice._  

_I also learned that you like to smile, even when you’re mad. I am convinced that this is not your real face._  

_Still, I’d like to think I saw it anyway. Maybe I will remember it for next time. Maybe I will be able to spot you in a crowd._

_Iwaizumi_

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


“Welcome to the universe,” Tooru says, welcoming Kunimi to the corner shop he's started working for on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturday mornings, now a fine purveyor of produce, oden on chilly nights _,_ and all the Japanese newspapers one could ever need. Kunimi steps in after him, fairly unimpressed, and just goes to the counter to pay for today’s copy of the _Nichibei Shimbun_ , a crate of satsumas from the front, and a fresh pack of smokes. The way he rings the service bell, once to signal, _okay, that’s nice, but I don't care,_ tells Tooru not to show him his innovations in candy sorting today, and to give up all necessary theatrics. 

“You took up extra work?” Kunimi asks, already flipping through the newspaper before paying for it. Pretending to fiddle with the cash register, Tooru spots a full page advertisement for the annual cherry blossom viewing at the south end of San Francisco’s Japantown on Ellis Street, making a mental note to visit at some point next week. When he doesn't answer the question, too caught in the idea of storefront displays and letters he'd like to read, Kunimi takes the liberty of tapping the bell once more, quietly incessant. “So,” he starts again. “ _You took up extra work?”_

Tooru smiles up at Kunimi, pleasant as a shop boy should be. “After reading a few of Iwa-chan’s letters, I had an itch to stop sitting still,” he explains. “I mean, I didn't really like the fishmonger’s, or waiting tables, so I didn't stick too long with any of those, but I like it just fine here—I mean, for _now_ , at least.”

“You call him Iwa-chan?” Kunimi catches.

“I like the way it sounds,” Tooru answers him. “Also, is there anything wrong with extra work?”

“Oh, _everything.”_ Kunimi’s eyes go wide for a moment before closing. “But no harm done, I guess. As long as you’re reading those letters along the way. I just thought you'd like to save some of your energy.”

“Iwa-chan’s been keeping me busy, but I guess I prefer it that way,” Tooru nods along, their hands exchanging money. “Everytime I start a new letter, I try to read it in the place he wrote it.” He thinks of such places. Ocean Beach. Fisherman’s Wharf. This corner shop and the takoyaki place down the street. A trolley stop without getting on. He lets his gaze lower when he sifts through the bills in the register. A fond smile finds its way across his face, and almost feels like laughing about it, but he wipes it away before Kunimi can see.

But Kunimi does see, and he rings the bell again at the sight; at once, Tooru hides the bell away and scowls as a cover for anything sentimental. To change the topic, he asks what he’s been doing all morning since leaving the apartment. It turns out Kunimi’s gotten himself a new part-time job sorting books down at _Gosha-do Books and Stationery_ , on top of the regular reading he already does on most days, and Tooru only chides him for questioning him about second jobs. 

“Maybe that work I’m supposed to translate is already at the shop,” Kunimi just explains, “which means less work for me later on.”

They go home after that, and the both of them read extensively until the sun affords them no more natural light. However, Tooru doesn't pick up any new letters in that time (he believes that the remaining ninety or so letters deserve a time of their own) and peruses through an anthology of Heian era poetry instead, courtesy of Kunimi. He decides he is unimpressed by the unnamed poet’s work, and that he could've very well written these himself. 

“I still can't believe you call him _Iwa-chan,”_ Kunimi just says over a dinner of plain millet and mackerel pike, and Tooru owns up to it yet again. He likes the sound of the name, like he might actually know Iwaizumi, and doesn't think of stopping anytime soon. Like that, the subject is dropped, more like floated out of existence (because _‘Iwa-chan’_ really does feel good to say) and Tooru still can’t help but feel light about the newest Japantown he’s called home. Forget Portland _,_ or New York City, or Liberdade. _San Francisco_ might be the place to be, raised on his feet in their small, but well-kept studio apartment. Maybe he’d finally stop here. Kunimi just sighs in a non-answer, comfortable on his bed with a book in his face, and Tooru thinks to tell him about the cities he’s visited some other time.

That night, when Tooru feels the tremor of his first Californian earthquake, not unlike the ones he’s used to Tokyo, he is lying wide awake and staring up at the ceiling. He sees fire flash through his eyes, real to the point of a slight singe in his palm, and jolts up to make sure his world isn’t ending. The ceiling lamp barely shakes, and the volumes on the shelf above Kunimi’s bed shift a little to the edge, but no damages are made and cracks do not form. Kunimi stays asleep through it, and Tooru tells himself to rest easy.

_(Are you looking for something too, Tooru?)_

But Tooru doesn’t rest easy. He almost never does. Not when he was in Tokyo, or New York City or Portland or Liberdade. San Francisco will be no exception. To the beat of a west coast rumble, and to wander into the belly of some beast called ease, he gathers his jacket, a pair of spare keys, and another letter to read. Forever restless, with schedules barely set and routine nothing but a stifling formality, he knocks on the door of the corner store owner’s house to tell him that he’s quitting. He tries coffee for the first time and rides the last trolley going back to the depot. _Keep going._ Tooru walks on after that, past the tiny aftershocks and low simmer of an early morning.

By the edge of sunrise, he’s found himself at 1919 Bush Street, carefully treading the edges of farm-raised fish ponds owned by the _Nippon Goldfish_ company. He watches them swim against the oncoming light, the sun reflected off low greenhouse walls, and wonders what it’s like to swim on and on and on. Rolling his pants up, he kicks off his shoes and sets himself at the edge, toes wading. Hands grip Iwaizumi’s next letter.

  
  
  


_Tooru._

_Tonight, I had too much trouble sleeping. I suddenly had the feeling that I would die if I kept still for any longer, so I sprinted out of my room and down the block and couldn’t look back until morning. Do you ever have nights like those? I have a strange feeling that you might, which is why I’m writing._  

_Well, stay safe if you decide to run, too. The city is full of strange things. Maybe I’ll even run into you._   
  


_Iwaizumi_

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
  


“Past lives.”

Oikawa first utters the words to Hinata when Kageyama is not there with them, tea hot on the tray and steaming up to the ceiling of the _American_ room, the only one its kind in the entire museum. Hinata’s eyes grow wide before falling into acceptance, or maybe the beginning of it, and he nods at least in some sort of understanding.

“So they're not just random people,” Hinata says, his inflection tinged with near-questions. “You believe they're the same. All throughout different lifetimes?”

Oikawa nods, precisely offhanded about it. “I know it's hard to believe, but there's that old saying, you know, that history repeats itself.” Hinata nods to this. “Well, this time it's not some reoccurring feud between two states, or world wars. They're two people, finding each other again and again, wherever they go! Whatever lifetimes they live. Isn't that fun to think about?”

Hinata’s eyes go wide, but there is something like clarity in his stare, like _almost_ understanding to _yes, I know this is so. A gut feeling._ Oikawa takes hidden solace in this, takes a sip of tea that burns the roof of his mouth, but keeps going anyway. 

“So…” Hinata starts up again.

“So?” 

“Tell me more about this!”

“Oh, never mind about this for now.” 

“ _Never mind?”_

Oikawa doesn't talk about past lives much further. He tells Hinata about the first time he had become interested in history instead, and all roads leading to now. “It was like magic,” he explains. “I was four, and my parents wanted to take me to this museum. And _what business does a four year old kid_ _have in the National_ , you might ask.” Hinata shows another nod, and Tooru laughs. “Well, the answer is none. I was really the worst, you see, a bit quiet but never the type to sit still. So I ran the first chance I got, as far as I could, to here.”

“And you hid,” Hinata breathes out.

“I hid,” Oikawa repeats, smile wry and terribly smug. “At a house that would only open for me.” He goes on to explain the wrath of an impossible ivy and an overprotective wisteria tree, and how most of the groundskeepers thought it was just a mess of rotted wood and debris under the brambles. But it wasn't; Oikawa had found an entrance to a guesthouse held in tact and empty to the naked eye. Like a dream, he could even say it had been a first love.

The museum crew had fallen in love with Oikawa Tooru in turn. _He's the only the house will let near! He must welcome us first!_ It had been like being a venerated god. His parents would move the family to Nara for the chance at their son to learn the finer points of history, and the promise of the city’s open charm. Oikawa even tells Hinata about his first encounter with the _Iroha_ and a bunch of other writings from the time, all previously hidden under loose floorboards, and how he had first pieced the _Heian_ room together with nothing with a few scattered poems, letters, and a step stool to build his first wooden display stands. He had been ten at the time, and irretrievably engrossed. 

Little by little, he pieces the years together for Hinata. Letters come to Oikawa by way of fortunate accident or the a sudden urge to read on random subjects like _1920’s Goldfish Farms in Northern California._ He takes pride in the fact that he probably knows hundreds of kanji Matsukawa or Hanamaki _or anyone_ will probably never _see_ , just to read the older works in his possession.

His creation story is a devoted foray through elementary, then middle, then high school and the academia beyond it. Tales of horror are nothing but slow nights reading through old textbooks and scrolling through infinite online archive databases.

But Oikawa doesn't delve into the messier things with Hinata. The ex-girlfriends, the ex-boyfriends, the bad breakups (or the amicable ones that had felt even more violent in Oikawa’s gut the day after). He doesn't admit to the fact that Matsukawa only started smoking after they had made their (very, very amicable) split. He doesn't tell Hinata about the ex-girlfriends he still calls by first name, _Mayumi-chan_ and _Hana-chan_ and _Umi-chan_ , pleasant and shallow over tea but never enough to _rekindle_. (And oh, how he never really thought of the option to _rekindle._ ) He doesn’t confess to him about all of their casual insistences of _‘oh, you should really get out more,’_ or _‘all you ever do is coop yourself up in this house,’_ made with the lightest of scorn, offhanded but enough for Oikawa to notice.

“I’ve done a lot of good work here,” Oikawa tells Hinata. Quiet emerges, and the two of them shake out any looming heaviness.

The house creaks again, like some old god crying out for another. Oikawa thinks another storm might come this afternoon. He glances up at the four walls, all lined with old photos of San Francisco trolleys and apartments, soda shop tin signs, and commemorative pamphlets for _Gosha-do Books and Stationery,_ and wonders about that history’s _Tooru._ Hinata offers to bring the make another pot of tea in the kitchen, and Oikawa jokes that he better not make a mess of things while he’s at it. Hinata nods, pride swelling because he _swears_ he knows what he’s doing this time, and speeds off down the hall.

As he waits, Oikawa lets himself flop on his back. He closes his eyes for a moment for the briefest of power naps, and lets himself breathe easy. _One, two, three, one, two, three,_ he counts in exhaled triplets, and he thinks it just might work this time. Slipping into pre-sleep limbo, he imagines a road going uphill, a trolley about to leave, and a boy leaning out to see the side. He’s laughing to himself, free by the loose cotton of a white t-shirt, and he’s showing off his bagged goldfish to the rest of a city. “ _I’m_ _Iwaizumi,”_ he whispers to his new pet fondly, and Oikawa feels the need to say something right back. But before he gets the chance, someone shakes him, and forces him out of the dream.

“Oikawa-san? Did you faint?” 

Kageyama Tobio crouches down next to him, repeating a name other than his incessant _Oikawa-san_. Oikawa swallows, feels his ears pop from the pressure, and shakes his head. “What did you say, Tobio-chan?” he asks.

“You said something in your sleep,” Kageyama says, a small nod to indicate the tiniest _hello_. He’s got a box from a nearby bakery in one of his hands, and mutters that Hinata requested afternoon snacks before coming here. 

“What did I say?” Oikawa asks, propping himself up from the floor. 

“ _It’s nice to meet you, Iwa…”_ Kageyama looks off to the side. “ _Iwa-chan._ ” Reluctant might be the word for it. 

“ _Iwa-chan?_ ” Oikawa asks.

“Please don’t make repeat myself, Oikawa-san,” requests Kageyama, more flustered than anything. 

“So you’ve crawled back here, then, huh? To watch me sleep? _How creepy,_ ” Oikawa tries to joke, because he refuses to paint himself _unnerved._

_Iwa-chan._ Oikawa winces at the name. _Iwa-chan._ He pretends it isn’t significant.

Without another word, Kageyama gets up from his crouch, offers a reluctant bow, as if that in itself is a sole apology for the other day. Oikawa takes it, mostly because he’s too tired not to.

On his way out, Oikawa notices fresh rain on Kageyama’s windbreaker. _I told you it was raining,_ he says to no one in particular, and he wonders if he should really consider taking a sabbatical. _Time away would be...something_ , he thinks. He feels the flick of a drop hit his cheek, and another on the tip of his nose, long after Kageyama’s left the room, and he wonders if he's really left the comfort of sleep.

When another one hits, right from above and just missing an eye, he knows he isn't. The next one lands squarely like a flick against a forehead, and Oikawa lets it roll down his cheek without moving. 

Up above, in Japan’s most impenetrable guesthouse, a leak has sprung for the first time in its history. When the rain seeps through in droplets, nothing damaging but an omen nonetheless, Oikawa closes his eyes and tells himself that everything is just fine. It must be. _It must be_ , because it has always been his house, his home, and his pride. There will be no sabbaticals, after all. 

He balls his fists, like this might be another way to start a prayer, quiet without clapping his hands together. He wills it to stop raining, because he tells himself he’s not going anywhere—not today and not ever.

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

_Tooru._  

_Today I rode a trolley for the first time after doing an errand down by Bush Street today. It might seem strange, that I've never ridden one before, but I am usually a fan of walking, and I like how the hills give me a little extra challenge. But I had spent all day helping out at the grand opening of a goldfish farm of all things, and the owners insisted I take one with me for my help. ‘Don't keep it too long in the bag, or it'll suffocate,’ they told me, so I decided to take their advice instead of walking all the way back. It was too hot a day for spring, anyway. I am no murderer._  

_So, about the trolley: it's okay once in awhile, but I don't recommend it all the time. Move on your own, when you can. See the city for what it is._  

_Ah. I did mean to get so spiritual on you today. I'm going to go now. Until next time._

 

_Iwaizumi_

  
  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

“You've taken up work _where_ now?” Kunimi asks, tightening the bow tie around his neck one morning, already five minutes late for work. He gathers a bunch of books he was reading off of his bed, throws them into his knapsack, and watches Tooru unveil his surprise: lifting a handkerchief off a small bowl on the nightstand (goodbye _phonograph_ ), he shows off his a new goldfish, a black beauty by the name of _Iwa-chan,_ and astounds the exact population of, well, no one. Kunimi merely yawns, goes back to brushing his hair and tying his dress shoes, and Tooru wonders why he even tries anymore. 

“You didn't even guess,” Tooru urges, gesturing towards his new friend.

Kunimi shrugs. “I decided not to. You change jobs every other day so it'd be pointless.”

“That's not true,” Tooru says, knowing how much he's lying to himself. Afterall, he had been at the corner store for less than twenty-four hours, and at the shoe shiners’ for less than five. He had considered helping out on the docks as Iwa-chan did, but there was something about getting on a boat again that made him feel much too queasy, so he had decided on the next best thing.

“Tomorrow, you're going to tell me that you're joined a traveling troupe of _bunraku_ puppeteers,” Kunimi sighs out. “And it wouldn't surprise me one bit.” 

With a snicker, and because he just loves proving people wrong, Tooru just goes over to the foot of his bed to unveil his covers. On his way to the _for-play_ shooting galleries at the town festival, he's taken three large crates of goldfish from _Nippon_ to deliver to the vendors, all of them swimming in their bowls, and lets _Iwa-chan_ join an empty slot in the box. Secretly, he thinks his new friend might deserve a better home and a better owner, and Kunimi says nothing about it. 

The two of them make their way to Ellis Street to see the cherry blossoms. Along the way, Tooru peeks up fondly at the petals, blooming like they still might be in Japan, and he has to remember that they aren't even the kind he likes. Up above, the flowers come together in bunches instead of cascading billows, and he has to wonder why wisteria trees don’t bloom here, too.

“I'll see you later,” Kunimi waves by the small curl of fingers, tying on an apron over his fancy clothes. “Oh, and be careful of the crowds. My mother says it's a bad day for them.” 

Tooru stops in his tracks, careful not to tip the goldfish over in his wheelbarrow. “Really? Why?” he asks. 

“I don't know,” answers Kunimi, ever unhelpful. He meets his employer by the _Gosha-do_ stand, where they’re holding their semi-annual used book sale, and Tooru trudges off to find the shooting galleries. 

And just as Kunimi’s instructed, Tooru spends the rest of the day avoiding the crowds. He sets himself on a chair, watching the children catch fish in a pool as promised prizes. They ask him questions, and Tooru only answers with malaise, preferring to watch the other townsfolk shuffle by instead. 

_Mister, are you from here, too? (_ Tooru tells them no. “I'm from the Miyagi prefecture, son of two florists and heir to incredible cheek bone structure.”)

_So, your English must be terrible, then._ (“Yeah, but I probably know more kanji than you.” He doesn't care how petty it sounds, to argue with a seven-year old.) 

_Why are you here?_ (To which Tooru asks back, “well why are _any_ of us here?” He'd rather not get into the specifics of running away from his home in the fifth ward, rebellious stage extended to the age of twenty and counting, or how his father chased him down an alley with a broom in hand.) 

_You're weird, mister._ (“I know, but aren't we all?” he asks right back, _philosophical_ mistaken for a tease gone too far.) 

In retaliation, the child shows Tooru a sour frown, scoops up a fish with his net, and runs off into the crowd without a bowl to hold it. Tooru thinks to let him go, but notes the pool where the boy stole the fish from. When he notices the only black one in that group’s gone missing ( _oh god, not Iwa-chan_ ), he nearly falls out of his chair, quickly fills himself a bowl to run with, and tries to find the kidnapper in the crowd. 

“Iwa-chan!” He yells out in vain. Tooru darts up and down the lane before remembering that children hide better than anyone else, and resigns himself to a sigh. Feeling worse than he should (‘because it's just a goldfish! One in a sea of thousands at _Nippon_!’ he tells himself), he lets himself drift back along the crowd, shoulders bumping against the rigidness of his own, only to see him again.

“Iwa-chan?”

The glimpse of him comes into view, and there might be something funny about the way empty spaces form between a people gathered together. Gaps rule between outstretched fingertips, and the millimeters make meager sights between close friends. Tooru equates it to the cracks between flourishing billows, or the canopies of spring trees. In the crowd, Tooru sees _him_ like he sees a summer sky. 

He drops his empty fish bowl and goes on, against the crowd.

Iwaizumi turns, barely enough to see the curve of a cheek, the shell of his ear. He is still the same as Tooru imagined back on the beach, with a yukata on like he thinks it's _Obon_ in a prefecture’s outskirts. 

“Iwa-chan?” he asks out loud, volumes raised past his usual discretion, but he receives no answer. He realizes Iwaizumi isn’t wearing a yukata at all, but something older, overflowing, and most of all, familiar. A set sokutai robes, a day’s blue and muddied at the edges, grace the streets of San Francisco instead of— _oh, what was the place_ , and Tooru cannot help but follow its trail.

“Iwa-chan,” he calls out again, but he does not turn around. “Iwa-chan!” Tooru calls, as if this is the name to use.

“Iwa…” Tooru feels another name form instead. It comes out of him in a tiny breath, not sure enough to say it, before finding its foothold in the strangest familiarity. Like home, if Tooru could ever really pinpoint the word.

“Hajime!” he shouts, and he meets him in the eye for the second time in this city. This time it sticks, but Iwa-chan—no— _Hajime’s_ stare rings hollow, like seeing an old friend in a faded photograph, there but not really. There, but like a fond memory, already lost to another time. 

Still, Tooru follows him, feels his hand reach out like he'd like to hold another. Phantom thistles brush at his feet. Petals fall from cherry blossom trees, but they come like a rain of wisteria instead, and end of day in San Francisco becomes a breezy high noon elsewhere. ‘ _Oh, where was elsewhere?’_ Tooru asks with a squint, trying to remember where he's seen this all before.

Before he realizes where he's gone, Tooru’s followed Hajime up to 1919 Bush Street, back to _Nippon_ and their pools of farm-raised fish. With all of them full except for one, Tooru finds himself drawn to the single goldfish swimming by himself by the surface. “Iwa-chan,” Tooru breathes out in relief, when he knows it's him, _this little troublemaker,_ and lets him swim on in the water alone.

“Don't ever run off like that,” he jokes to his _non-_ pet, before remembering his pursuits. When he jolts up, Tooru realizes that _Hajime_ has gone from his sights again, leaving nothing but a city’s forming dusk. He wonders if this is what Kunimi was talking about with the Ellis Street crowds, and if it would've been better just lying low this time around. 

Tooru wades his hands through the water, and words fly through his head again, the single question ever present. 

_(Are you looking for something too, Tooru?)_

—but this, he cannot answer. Not truthfully, at least. It feels wrong to lie this time, so he doesn't.

Tooru looks to the deep end instead of a near empty pool instead, at something glimmering gold at the bottom. When he fishes out a gold ring, simple and in tact, he keeps it in his pocket, sees it as a sure sign to take _Iwa-chan_ home, and not to let go of him this time around.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

_Tooru._  

_Today, I became a king. Well, maybe not the real kind, but I certainly did feel royal for at least a day, no matter how uncomfortable I felt about it. It was the cherry blossom viewing festival on Ellis Street, and it was the actor playing Emperor Horikawa suddenly caught the flu when he was about to go on. I was minding my own business, helping out with the sets, when they pulled me onstage, made me put on a blue robe and a kanmuri crown, and call myself someone I’m not. At least they paid me, I guess, and I can’t deny funds when I get to send them home to my mother._

_They were performing a piece called, “The Traitorous Poet.” A stagehand told me it used to be a bunraku puppet play, you know, back when ukiyo was a really big thing. Everything just had to be right, because it was the first time it was going to be performed anywhere, even Japan, and they didn’t want a sick actor ruining their world premiere. ‘San Francisco is a cultural hub, and this show’s a prime example,’ they told me. ‘We’ll show the Americans why they should never close their borders!’_

_I thought about leaving, but I didn't. You see, I don't care much for history, or old poems, or anything of that sort, but there was something in the story that made me want to stay. Maybe it was so ridiculous I couldn't_ not _stay. Like I was meant to prove it wrong._ _So the first thing I asked, when they pushed me on stage, was this: did the poet really do it? Did he poison Emperor Horikawa? Because I don’t think he did._  

_The stagehand told me, ‘of course! Who else could’ve done it?’_  

_So I ran. All the way up to Bush Street in these robes! You really should’ve seen me. I’m probably the last person they should’ve asked to play an emperor, of all things, and I’ve probably any hope of that show forever. I don’t think I can ever show my face at an Ellis Street fair._

_But I think it was worth it. Somehow, I feel like I've done something right today._

 

_Iwaizumi_

  
  
  
  


 

 

**x**

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

“It doesn’t mean anything.” 

“How do you know that?” Kunimi asks, always in a waking dream, and Tooru ignores him for a day of peace. The both of them have set themselves up for a few hours at Ocean Beach today, comfortable on a shared picnic blanket with enough rice balls to last them a couple of hours, a few books for reading by the waves, and all the cigarettes Kunimi could ever hope to smoke ( _gods bless his weary lungs_ ). Tooru’s even brought _Iwa-chan_ along for the trip, careful to set him where no one might disturb his bowl, and thinks to mark this day mundane. 

“I don’t know,” says Tooru, dropping a few pinches of sand so _Iwa-chan_ might get to feel the beach, too. He smiles easy, taking the ring out of his pocket to hold in a free palm. He’s never once thought to put it on, but he figures it wouldn’t be nice to lose, either; because there’s something resilient about _heirlooms_ and _mementos_ that refuse to rust or break down, it’d be a shame to be the one to let something like that slip by. 

“How did you even find that thing?” asks Kunimi, lowering a rather stylish pair of rounded big-eye sunglasses, ever popular when Tooru first saw them on the streets of Manhattan, then Liberdade. 

“Oh, well,” Tooru starts, shrugging before finding the right story to tell. “I was cleaning the pools at the goldfish place again, you know, _Nippon_ , and I just happened to find it.” He smiles up at Kunimi, finding a pair of his own sunglasses to hide behind in lieu of the complete truth. He’d rather not tell Kunimi about the sokutai robes, or running through the crowds, or the ever-lingering name, or how _Hajime_ stays in his head no matter how many times he's shooed the syllables away. 

“You sure about that?” Kunimi asks, skeptical anyway, and Tooru has to remember he won't always be clever enough to hide from everyone. 

“Hm.” Tooru lies back on the blanket in a groan, pushing his head against the covered grooves of sand, and takes in a faded sun without answering outright. “If you're so psychic,” Tooru counters instead, “why don't you guess? Read my mind, Kunimi-chan.”

Kunimi takes one good look and turns his nose up, slow like billowing smoke. “Don't want to. Also, believe me when I say that I've tried my fair share of times already,” he says, more a matter-of-fact than anything else. “Walking around in there's like getting lost an overgrown forest, and you're never kind enough to provide maps.” 

“Oh?” Tooru asks, fully intrigued (and perhaps a little proud of his own mental fortitudes). “Maybe you just need to try a little harder.”

“No thanks,” Kunimi has no problem telling him. “Besides, my mother said it’d always be like this. _Kunimi-chan, I can tell you'll suffer a bit for this one. Kunimi-chan, it won't be so easy with him._ I can see what she's trying to say now.”

Tooru rolls over closer to Kunimi, kicking up some sand in his wake. “Oh, come on, _Kunimi-chan_. You can't possibly find me _that_ difficult to deal with. I’ve paid my rent so far, haven't I? Aren't I _easy_?” From there, flirtations arise in the form of wagging sunglasses and innocent hums from their favorite jazz records, but Kunimi will not have any of it; he just rises to collect a book off their pile, and Tooru has to grab him by the ankle to get him back. 

Kunimi scoffs and shakes Tooru free. “If things were so _easy,_ I would've been able to read you by now.” He points an index finger to his temple, makes tiny loops against his skin, and Tooru watches, right on the edge of mesmerized. “I'd find that work I need to find, and we wouldn't have to wait for you to read all these letters.”

“But it’s not like I know what's going on either,” Tooru tells him. “I'm learning as I go, too. You wouldn't find anything in my head.”

“That might be the case, but it’s something else.”

Blue sleeves rise up in flash. Tooru hears geta sandals click. “What else?” he asks in all seriousness, and he thinks back to _Hajime_ and the ghost on Ellis Street. In between them, _Iwa-chan_ floats on in a slow crawl in his bowl, and Kunimi sits back down on the blanket to toss his book away.

Kunimi shrugs. “It's not something they teach you in school, you know, and I don't think they ever will,” he explains, and Tooru thinks he can understand that at least. “But everyone’s got something resting inside of them, older than any living thought or habit you've ever had.” Another drag comes from his half-smoked cigarette, and it looks sweeter than ever. Kunimi even takes off his sunglasses, gaze empty at the ocean ahead. “Souls are strange things, I guess. Sometimes they come out like, _hey, I'm here, please notice me_ , and sometimes they’ll make every effort to hide.” 

Tooru draws his knees close, eyes still kept on Kunimi before remembering to avert. He buries himself in crossed arms, strangely discontent at the state of things.

“What are you saying, then?” Tooru asks. “Have I got a bad soul?”

Shaking his head, Kunimi tells him no. “I don't think there are any bad souls. Some are just more difficult than others. It's just up to you to clear things up.”

“And how do I do that?” Tooru asks.

“Like I've said, it's never a complete science. That's why we’re doing this, I guess. We can take our time.” At the suggestion, Kunimi stares down at his hands, fingers folded into palms to feel his third line. Tooru watches him uncover a thin, but solid track across his skin, and thinks to check his own. It is broken up in several spots, but thick in the segments that dare to exist.

“ _It's never going to be easy for him_ ,” Kunimi repeats to the incoming breeze, late spring almost ready to wilt into a San Francisco summer. “That's what my mother always tells me.”

Tooru glances over at Kunimi, and offers nothing in terms of cheeky response or reprieve; he just thinks back to his nights on fire escapes in New York City, the quartered off basements in Liberdade, and the stillness of the ward he's left behind in Tokyo, and knows he cannot claim anything like _ease_. _Ease_ comes naturally for some. _Ease_ is a matter of luck and whether the gods like you enough. _Ease_ is not for those with broken up lifelines (and Tooru thinks about how he’s never really liked his in the first place). 

But he's also learned, through all the trials and tribulations of world travel on a meager budget, that there will never be any use lamenting a lack of something. He must go on, exhaust all his routes, and find strength in the journey itself. 

Feeling at the ring in his palm, Tooru remembers its resilience, and how he must be the same, too.

“Kunimi-chan,” he calls out from across the blanket. Kunimi looks over, sees the ring in Tooru’s hand, and offers a snide little huff into the wind.

“I thought it wasn’t anything.” 

Tooru shrugs. “Well, maybe I was wrong,” he decides, still not knowing what to make of this all. He flicks a gaze towards _Iwa-chan._ He still swims on.

Kunimi rolls his eyes, offers a palm, outstretched, and waits for Tooru to drop the ring in his care. Tooru does, careful in the exchange.

“Kunimi-chan?” 

Kunimi says nothing.

“ _Kunimi-chan?_ ”

At once, dark eyes go more vacant than ever, but find a way to lift out of half-lidded indifference. Tooru even comes closer, presses hands on his cheeks to smack the life back into Kunimi, only to feel his own wind leave him instead. In a glimpse, a thousand skies pass by in Kunimi’s gaze, all upon a blank canvas, and the seasons come and go with each blink. Tooru catches tears he’s never seen had the chance to see before.

“I…” 

Tooru shakes his head, shaking himself. “What's wrong?”

Kunimi mouths a name, barely heard under the rush of the Pacific. “ _Hajime.”_ Tooru’s never heard anyone else speak this name before. The ring stays in Kunimi’s hand, caught in his grip like he might never let go of it again. 

“What did you just say?”

“I'm sorry,” Kunimi apologizes. “I don't know...I don't know what came over me.” Tentatively, Tooru lifts his hands away from Kunimi’s face and lets him wipe away the tears, as if they were never his to cry in the first place. He drops the ring back into Tooru’s palm, clearing his throat and finding his sunglasses once more.

“Kunimi-chan, talk to me.”

“I saw something I wasn't supposed to see,” Kunimi edges out, clearly still shaken. He barely has the nerve to strike a new match for a much-needed cigarette, much less hold a proper conversation.

“When you touched the ring?” asks Tooru. Kunimi nods.

“I saw him. The letter writer. _Hajime._ ” Every time he says it, Tooru feels a chill race up his spine, defenseless against  that name on someone else’s tongue. _Don't say it_ , Tooru thinks, _don't say it._ He feels the urge to run again. 

“What? What about him?” Tooru asks, even though he doesn't have to.

Kunimi stares out at the ocean, as if Tokyo, _Nara,_ is just a swim’s worth away. Tears run past the lens of rounded sunglasses, and the air smells of sea and tobacco ash. Waves crash, over and over, beginning to end.

“He got that ring for you, Tooru,” Kunimi explains. “I felt it to no end.”

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

**x**

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

_Tooru._  

_I don’t have much to write to you about today. Sometimes I run out of things to say, and this is one of those times._  

_Are you well today? Are you sleeping and eating? Are you making this city yours?_  

_It’s tough, not knowing, for some reason. Maybe I’ll get to meet you soon._

  


_Iwaizumi_

  
  
  
  


 

 

* * *

 

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

“You could've died.”

“But I didn't. Can't we all just thank the gods for our good health?” 

Hanamaki tightens the bandages. Oikawa tries hard not to wince. Matsukawa keeps to his own devices. 

“It looks you've got yourself a sprain, _Doctor Oikawa_ ,” Matsukawa announces, almost in a taunt. “And a bit of a bum knee. Ever get that checked out?” 

“Good health, _my ass_ ,” Matsukawa mutters by open doors, looking out to the rest of the grounds, smoke wafting out into the waning storm. It smells like rain, but the wind does not have the gall to come in.

“You also scared your volunteers out there. Might have to treat them for shock.” 

“Oh, they have strong hearts. They’ll survive.” Oikawa just lies back on his pillow, waiting for Hanamaki to finish bandaging up his ankle after a particularly interesting tumble off a certain guest house roof (and a refusal to visit the emergency room). They've situated themselves in the _American_ room for the time being, complete with a first aid kit, soaked socks, and two non-refundable train tickets back to Tokyo. Hanamaki does his job, mending at the minimum. Matsukawa floats on out onto the porch, probably still thinking about how to burn this goddamned house down. 

“What were you even doing out on the roof?” Hanamaki asks, beckoning for Oikawa’s pillow. He sits up, and Hanamaki props his foot up with it. 

Oikawa flits a gaze over at the bucket on the ground, no longer catching drops. _Thank goodness._ He scoots over against a wall, careful not to disturb the framed pictures, and sighs out, ever dramatic. “Well,” he starts, making it up as he goes, “you’ll never believe this, but there was this cat, the biggest I’ve ever seen, you see, and he was making these really strange sounds. He was really scaring poor Tobio-chan, I guess, so I figured it was my duty to shoo him away. So we got into the most horrible fight on the roof and he knocked me over!” 

“Oh _shut up_ , Oikawa,” Matsukawa barks from outside. “I went and patched the roof up after we brought you inside. I saw the leak.”

“So don’t ask about things you already know, then,” Oikawa has no problem reprimanding. “Don’t you think you two are too young to be nagging me this much?”

Hanamaki rolls his eyes. “ _You’re_ the one who called us here. You have us listed as emergency contacts at the main office.” 

Oikawa shrugs. “I figured you wouldn't mind,” he says, watching Matsukawa slink back through the doorway, hair still a dripping mess from the rain. “Plus, I don't think I could list my parents anymore. To-san’s got arthritis in his knees and kaa-chan’s still running the flower shop. Tokyo doesn't feel so far away, anyway.” 

Matsukawa and Hanamaki exchange stares. 

“About that.”

Oikawa observes the two of them fumble with only a supreme sort of awkwardness. Hands comb against the backs of heads, and formed telepathy says, _no, you tell him. I told him last time!_ Oikawa waits, drawing his knees in closer, defenses held against the forces of undeniable change, and braces himself for it. An uneasy smile comes, even if it's the last thing he wants for himself, _to smile_. He plays with the edges of his fingernails.

“We’re moving out of the country, Oikawa,” says Matsukawa. “We were both offered jobs in New York, and we thought it'd be nice to try it out while we could.” 

Oikawa’s mind goes blank for a second. He stifles an audible breath before nodding to himself. “That's great,” he says, as the rain falls harder outside. “Congratulations.” 

“Oikawa—”

“Oh, we should celebrate, I think,” Oikawa gets up, no matter how much it hurts to stand. “How about I send Yahaba-chan to get a cake for us? I think he should still be in the office,” he insists, wandering out into the hall and hobbling the entire way. “What do you want? Chocolate mousse? Tiramisu?” He feels pressure rush up his throat, like air after a fizzy drink, and gulps it down before dry heaving. “Ah, whatever we get, it has to be good!” he continues on. He keeps himself over the sink, sure he might heave into something terrible, but nothing comes. When no one follows after him after a few seconds alone, he tells himself it is better this way. _Hanamaki Takahiro and Matsukawa Issei,_ eloping across the seas. _Moving forward at the speed of light._ Oikawa really might be happy for them. He just doesn't like feeling like he's still lightyears behind.

“Oikawa.”

Eyes keep on the sink faucet. Oikawa sees Matsukawa’s shadow in the doorway, black on yellowed light. He doesn't come closer, knowing they are comfortable with a certain amount of distance, with _almost_ taken with reprieve rather than regret. 

“We didn't know how to tell you,” confesses Matsukawa. “I was going to, when we sat down for coffee the other day, but I guess it's hard to talk about things like this.”

“Where's Makki-chan?” Oikawa asks in distraction. Running the water, he hears the pipes creak in the walls, hollow groans coming up the drain.

“He went out to buy cake. Maybe some _Suntory_. He figured I should be the one to talk things through with you.”

“There's nothing to talk about. This is great news, and you're going to see so many great things out there,” Oikawa insists, spinning around from the sink. Matsukawa doesn't buy it though, not this time, and leans harder against the doorway. _I'm not going anywhere._

“Let's play that game again,” Matsukawa says. “Ask me to say something.” 

Oikawa doesn't understand the point of this. “Why?” 

“Just humor me.”

“Fine,” relents Oikawa. He peers up at the ceiling with a deep breath before going on. “Go on.”

“I think the reason I couldn't tell you back then…” Matsukawa starts, huffing out a wry smile, perfect for his silhouette, “was because I'm still not sure about this, either.”

Oikawa frowns. “Why? It's New York. It'll be fine and you two will—” 

“ _Why?_ Because it doesn't beat home. I like working at the _Mainichi_. I like taking my specific train at my specific stop everyday. I like the way I've worn in my chair at the office. I like...I like waking up next to Hanamaki in our bed, in our apartment in Shibuya. What's there not to like? Why am I even moving?” 

Oikawa doesn't have to think too hard about it. He blinks into absolute awareness, clear through the house’s shadows. “Because you _can_ ,” he answers. “Because there's no crime in going forward,” Oikawa says, before biting his tongue.

Matsukawa sighs deep, but the smoke doesn't rise with him. He never lights his cigarettes inside the guesthouse, but his hands shake like he might need one right about now.

“Will we have to worry about you, though?” he asks. “About you falling off roofs? Not getting enough sleep? Not eating right? Dying with this house?” 

Oikawa shakes his head in the smallest motions. “No,” he says. “You shouldn't have to. I don't _want_ you to,” he adds on for good measure.

“Okay, then,” Matsukawa answers with voice trailing, never expecting. Sweeter than usual, maybe, and certainly sad. He just crosses his arms, lets the silence take over, all to stew in a house he probably hates the most. Fingers cross for the lack of a held cigarette. Oikawa wants to tell him _good luck_ , but he figures they were never meant for such sentimentality.

“When are you leaving?” asks Oikawa.

“We’re going to take a short trip next week, to look at apartments. But we’re aiming for the summer, if we have things our way." 

“So soon.”

“I know,” Matsukawa sighs. “I won't get to cover your exhibit next year.”

“You still could,” Oikawa states. “Just come take a trip here to see your favorite _ex-boyfriend_.”

“Oh?” Matsukawa just hums out, noncommittal, like he might not hate the idea; but in some last turn, he ends up shaking his head, full of resolve not to go with Oikawa this time. “I could,” he says, “but I won't. Because by this time next year, you'll find a plane ticket in your mailbox, and you'll come to New York instead." 

Oikawa gives up a frown. “You can't just expect me to drop everything to fly halfway across the world.” 

“To see your _favorite ex-boyfriend_?” Matsukawa interjects. “Maybe I can.” 

_The audacity._ Oikawa seethes in place—and just when he starts to wonder if it'd be in poor taste to kick him out at this point, Matsukawa’s already given himself a head start out into the hall. His steps have never looked lighter, and Oikawa considers tripping him while he's ahead.

He doesn't though, because they aren't children anymore. No longer could they be the kids tossing books behind their backs in the library, staying up all night to talk about nothing, eating only convenience store fare, and going home to live in a shared bed after. _They_ had come the right time, a good time, but a fleeting time all the same—and like the first time since accepting things, all those years ago, Oikawa still knew how to see things. How to see Matsukawa Issei.

_Fleeting. Wading. Nice while it lasted._

So when his footfalls stop, and Matsukawa Issei finds the doubt looming like a gravity he can't shake, Oikawa comes forward and reminds him of motion. Fingertips, the smallest touch, grace Matsukawa’s grown back, and give him the push to go on.

“You're going to love New York,” Oikawa tells him with no trace of tease or malice. Just as he is. Just as it should be. Matsukawa sighs. Hanamaki’s knocking at the door ahead.

“And it'll love you too, when you visit, right?”

Oikawa swallows down, hands lifted off, and thinks of the house he's made home. He begins to wonder about the merits of _taking his own advice_ , and knows he should try it one day. 

“Right,” Oikawa lies anyway, when Matsukawa’s already headed to answer the door. Hanamaki’s brought a cake and a six pack of _Suntory_ , and Matsukawa pays him back with the light graze of his sleeve, to get the drizzle off a wet cheek.

“Right,” Oikawa repeats to himself, when neither one of them are listening anymore, with his feet stuck in place.  
  
“Right,” Oikawa knows, knows better than anyone, but can’t bring himself to do a damn thing about it.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to throw vitriol at me over on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/iwakages) or [tumblr](http://companions.tumblr.com)! b-bye! (also please befriend me i am a smol lonely potato)   
> 


End file.
